


Foray

by scy



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-01
Updated: 2011-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-23 07:49:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/247915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scy/pseuds/scy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeremy keeps asking for things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foray

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to seperis and silviakundera for beta reading. Sequel to Push It

Jeremy was sitting on the floor by the couch reading when Damon came into the room and flopped down behind him, keeping his boots on even when he put them on the cushions. The book was one Jeremy had found on one of the bookshelves and it wasn’t as dry as he’d expected, so he didn’t look up when Damon came in. That didn’t go unnoticed, and Damon’s fingers curled in his hair and tugged lightly. Jeremy knew from experience that if he didn’t respond the next tug wouldn’t be as gentle and he glanced up briefly.

“Hey.”

“What’s so interesting?”

Jeremy held up the book and Damon rolled his eyes. “I can see that, what’s it about?”

“The Civil War,” Jeremy said and Damon sniffed but Jeremy scooted around until he could see Damon’s face. “I thought it would be good to read more about it, considering I’m shacked up with a veteran.” Jeremy grinned as Damon looked at him dubiously.

“Who’s shacking up?”

“I am,” Jeremy said. Most of his clothes had made their way over to the boarding house and when he’d been at home and looked for his favorite shoes, he’d realized that they were lying at the bottom of the closet in Stefan’s bedroom, where he and Damon spent a lot of their time. “I practically live here, even if you don’t want to admit it.”

Or, Jeremy thought unhappily, make it more public. His family and Stefan knew what he and Damon were doing, or at least that they were doing something together, but in public everything was the same, and Jeremy felt like the time they spent away from the boarding house was worse every day. Inside, with Damon, they were connected an there wasn’t any doubt about where they belonged, but outside Jeremy didn’t have that security and it felt like he was going to float away if he didn’t pay attention.

“Do you want me to put an announcement in the paper?” Damon asked.

“No, that would be dumb,” Jeremy said and blushed. Some part of him would have liked that though, if only because then he didn’t have to explain to everyone what was going on other than it was okay and he was with Damon.

Damon flicked at Jeremy’s ear and he ducked away. “Then what’s bothering you?” He didn’t have to say that Jeremy needed to share because that was one of the rules. Jeremy was supposed to tell Damon whatever was on his mind, even if he knew that Damon would think it was stupid. Damon had said it was part of learning to pull down barriers, and Jeremy said it was kind of weird, but Damon had made the consequences of not talking very clear. That hadn’t been fun, and Jeremy had walked funny for two days and hadn't been able to take off his shirt or shorts in the locker room without hiding in one of the changing stalls.

“I was just thinking about this stuff,” Jeremy said. “Trying to get it all worked out.”

“Get what worked out?” Damon asked.

“Why you guys don’t do more for people with everything you know,” Jeremy said. “I mean, doesn’t it bug you that the Founders Archives are wrong? They say that there was a battle here and it wasn’t, it was a bunch of vampires attacking the town.”

Damon’s expression smoothed out, and Jeremy stilled. He knew what that look meant. It was sometimes the only sign he could pick up on that told him he’d made a mistake and now he had to wait and hope he could figure out what it was before Damon had to tell him.

“If you’re going to get it most of it wrong, call it what it was,” Damon said. “It was an attack, all right, but nobody fired a single shot at a Union soldier because there weren’t any nearby. That was the easiest way to explain how people disappeared. Blame it on the war and you can write your own version without anybody objecting.” He laughed, and it wasn't a happy sound. “Most people don’t mind if they’re remembered as heroes even if it wasn’t true.”

“But you do,” Jeremy said. “I read that you and Stefan were killed in the fighting.”

“What killed us were bullets fired from our father’s rifle,” Damon said.

“You’re kidding,” Jeremy said, and didn’t really mean it like it sounded. He deserved the cuff to the head that Damon gave him and lowered his eyes. “Sorry, that wasn’t nice.”

“You think you know what it was like from reading that book?” Damon asked and pointed at it. “None of that gives you more than an idea.” Damon snorted. “This town, playing their games, they always have to live up to tradition even if it’s all a lie.”

“I've been in the Founders Day Parade,” Jeremy said. “We did research on our costumes, that wasn’t all wrong. Ric gave me some of the sources.” He knew that Damon didn’t think Alaric was an idiot, not compared to most people, but Damon shook his head.

“That's not what I'm asking. I want to know if you like playing soldier?”

“Do I think it's fun?” Jeremy shrugged. “My dad-” he swallowed around the lump of hurt that still choked him up a little when he talked about his parents, “was a member of the local reenactment troupe and it wasn't Elena's thing, I think because she had to wear a dress all the time and didn't get to do any of the fun stuff.”

“That sounds like your sister,” Damon said and took a second to picture it, Jeremy could tell. “She doesn’t look half bad in a dress.”

“Yeah, thanks for pointing that out,” Jeremy said. “Could you not fantasize about my sister right in front of me.”

“Why not?” Damon asked. “It’s not like she doesn’t know I’m doing it.”

Which just made it even more disturbing, since Elena seemed to have accepted it as part of Damon being himself, no matter what else was going on, and then she ignored it. Jeremy wasn’t finding it as easy.

“Yeah, but I’m not her, and I’m the one you’re dating,” Jeremy said, and went on, because it apparently needed to be said. “If you’re planning on going after her too, then I’m fine with letting your brother know, because it’s going to be both of us kicking your ass.”

Damon grinned. “It’s cute that you think you two even have a chance.”

“We’ll make it work,” Jeremy said and narrowed his eyes. “Can we stay on topic?”

“Fine,” Damon said and leaned back and rested his head on the armrest of the couch. “Were you making a point?”

“You were making fun of me for not hating history.” That didn’t make sense to Jeremy, not when Damon had actually experienced the stuff that Jeremy had only read about in books. “Why don’t you like talking about this stuff?”

“I don’t have a problem with it,” Damon said, his expression fixed in bored tolerance. “I just don’t see why you humans like to dress up and play at war when you don’t have any idea what it was actually like. If you did, it wouldn’t be as fun for you.”

“You say that a lot,” Jeremy said. “About most things.” He stared at Damon. “Why don’t you try it and see?”

Damon stared past Jeremy’s ear and his voice lilted when he spoke. “Sometimes there were so many men on the ground that it looked like the earth was coming toward you, crawling on its belly.” There was nothing on Damon's face to tell Jeremy what he was thinking, but from the flatness of Damon's voice, he guessed the image was a terrible one. “I remember nights after battles when we couldn’t find any other place to sleep, I’d use the body of the man next to me as a pillow.”

Jeremy’s throat closed up and he forced himself not to interrupt.

“You saw so many friends die that you didn't have time to waste on feeling bad,” Damon said. “So don’t try and tell me that I should care about what people think. None of the other founding families sent men off to war.” He smiled. “They were all rich enough to buy a replacement and look after their families in easier ways.”

“Sorry I asked,” Jeremy said. “But if that makes you so mad, then why don’t you, tell them the truth?”

Damon looked amused, and Jeremy grimaced.

“No, not that it was vampires that got captured that night, but some of it so that not everything is lies.”

“Why should I bother?” Damon asked. “It’s their loss.”

“And if they don’t know better then they’ll get what’s coming,” Jeremy finished. He knew that Damon had a vengeful streak, he was learning how deep it ran and right now it was like staring into an abyss and realizing that if he fell in he might not be able to climb out again. Looking at Damon, Jeremy wondered if he had ever loved the people in Mystic Falls and if that had made it worse.

Jeremy frowned. “Did you have a lot of friends when you went off to war?”

“I’m very friendly,” Damon said.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I know,” Damon said. “I was the eldest son of a very old and prominent family. That made me someone that people wanted to socialize with.” He bit his bottom lip thoughtfully. “I was always too loud though. I said things when I should have kept quiet and did what I thought was right instead of what was proper. I was probably too noble for my own good.”

“I can’t picture it,” Jeremy said and laughed. He was trying to picture Damon as he must have looked, dressed in a waistcoat and the rest of it and being himself, only human and maybe even vulnerable. He must have been gentler or something if he had fallen for Katherine and been willing to die to save her.

“It drove Father nuts,” Damon said. His tone was hard to decipher. It was somewhere between laughter and something more jagged.

“Did you two fight a lot?”

“It got worse when Stefan got older,” Damon said. “By then it was clear that he was always going to do the right thing, which was what Father wanted, and Father was hoping that if I was going to be so crass as to go off to war that I’d at least die honorably and redeem myself.”

“Nobody would want that to happen to their kid,” Jeremy said. Even from what he was piecing together no father could be that horrible.

Damon smiled. “Oh, I know he did. That’s the last thing he told me before I shipped out. Of course he didn’t say it front of Stefan. If he had, there would have been a scene, but he wanted me to know where I stood.”

“What a bastard,” Jeremy said.

“He was,” Damon said and shrugged. “But he’s dead and I’m here, so there’s something to be said for breaking all the rules.”

“I’m glad,” Jeremy said. “He sounds like a jerk and it’s good that you didn’t listen to him otherwise you wouldn’t be here.” With me, Jeremy held back and Damon rested a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. They sat there silently for a couple minutes and when it started to wear on him, Jeremy thought it was time to change the subject and tapped Damon’s leg. “What's the Rebel Yell? I mean, I've heard books describe it, but what did it really sound like?”

“Are you planning on using it?” Damon asked, willing to be distracted with less serious things.

“If I have to go to another boring class, I might,” Jeremy said, and Damon shook his head.

“You're going to find a lot of school to be a waste of time. That doesn't mean you should try and get out of it.”

Jeremy gaped at him. “Are you telling me I should get a good education? Do you know how that sounds coming from you?”

“If you want a lecture on the good that school will do you, talk to Stefan, he's been to college and high school way too many times.”

“Maybe he likes it,” Jeremy said. “He has to, otherwise why would he keep doing it?”

“Oh, this time I know why he came to Mystic Falls,” Damon said significantly, and Jeremy knew what he was talking about.

“Yeah, I got that much, Damon.” Jeremy glared at him and Damon laughed.

“You aren't always paying attention to the things you should be.”

“I don't think I've done too badly,” Jeremy said and waved a hand to indicate their situation. He meant, that he thought he was doing what Damon wanted him to. But, Jeremy didn't want to put it that way. It sounded way too needy and he didn't think that Damon liked it when his whatever-they-were's clung too much.

“You're learning,” Damon said, and that wasn't a rebuke, but it wasn't all praise, and Jeremy nodded.

“So, about that yell?”

Damon smiled. “I might share it sometime.”

“Cool,” Jeremy said. “You know, if you don't watch it Ric's going to get you to come in and talk to his class sometime.”

“Oh, he knows better than to let me loose around impressionable young minds,” Damon said, but he seemed pleased.

“I'm getting along,” Jeremy said, and grinned at Damon and then caught sight of the clock and frowned, checking his watch to make sure that the time was right. Just as he opened his mouth to ask another question, the front door opened.

“Is Stefan supposed to be back already?” Jeremy asked. He had seen his sister and Stefan when he left the house and they had looked like they were settling in for a long night of movie watching and hand holding. If there was anything else planned Jeremy was happy to miss it, but now he wondered if it had been cut short.

Damon lifted his head. “It’s not Stefan.”

“Who is it?” Jeremy asked.

“Hey, Jeremy, are you here?” called a voice Jeremy knew, and he jumped to his feet.

“What’s Tyler doing here?”

“Why don’t you go and ask him?” Damon said, and Jeremy thought of what happened the last time a werewolf was in the boarding house.

“No, I can tell him to come over to my house later,” Jeremy said. “I think it can wait.”

“Jeremy, don’t argue with me,” Damon said, and Jeremy’s shoulders hunched. He’d messed up and now he had to do what Damon said and not know how he was going to be punished later.

“Sorry.”

“Go and see what the werewolf wants,” Damon said and Jeremy nodded.

“Yeah, I can do that.” He hoped that Tyler wanted something like a homework assignment and he could get him to go away quickly.

“Hey, Tyler,” Jeremy called as he reached the door and put himself between Tyler and the rest of the house. “What’s up?”

“I just wanted to ask you something about Caroline’s mom-” Tyler froze, and Jeremy held his breath, hoping he hadn’t seen anything.

“Hang on, what's that?” Tyler asked, eyes narrowing as he looked at Jeremy.

“What's what?” Jeremy asked, and Tyler grabbed Jeremy by the collar and yanked him closer. “Hey, what are you doing?”

“Trying to see if you've got a frigging bite on your neck, and you do,” Tyler said, his eyes wide. “Where did you get that?”

“It's nothing,” Jeremy said, and Tyler jabbed the bite mark with a finger. “Ow, what the hell did you do that for?”

“I thought it was nothing,” Tyler said and glared at Jeremy. “Who did that to you?”

“First off, it's none of your business who does what to me, and secondly, this was my choice, and I asked for it.”

Tyler's expression changed, and he looked sick. “Oh man, no, you did not want that, nobody could want that. Somebody has turned your head completely around and you don't even know it.”

Jeremy stared at him. “We barely talk, since when have you known what I like doing?”

“You liked that?” Tyler asked, gesturing at his neck. “Jeremy, it looks like an animal chewed on you.”

“No, I just got bitten,” Jeremy said.

“Like that's any better,” Tyler said.

“Look, Tyler, this isn’t what you think-“

“Can you even hear yourself?” Tyler asked. “Did- was it Damon?”

“Was what Damon?” Jeremy asked. He was trying to stall for time, but if he did it much longer, Damon was going to get impatient.

“Did he hurt you?” Tyler asked.

“Look, Tyler, you should go,” Jeremy said and pushed Tyler toward the door. Tyler was digging in his heels, but Jeremy had the advantage of panic because Tyler couldn't keep standing in the foyer yelling at Jeremy. “I'll see you later,” Jeremy said as he shut the door on Tyler.

“He's worried about you,” Damon said when Jeremy returned to the parlor and Jeremy let out a gusty sigh.

“Yeah, why now?”

“He's had his first shift,” Damon said. “All of his instincts are waking up and his emotions are going to be out of control.”

Jeremy lifted his hands. “How does that have anything to do with me?”

Damon smiled. “Maybe he wants to be more than friends.”

“Oh no,” Jeremy said. “We've been fighting with each other since grade school.”

“See, it's been building,” Damon said and when Jeremy groaned in disgust, Damon beckoned.

“Can we stop talking about this now?” Jeremy asked. He didn't want to think about Tyler Lockwood thinking about him possibly needing help and being worried about him, and he'd almost completely put it out of his mind until the next night when he was taking off his clothes in front of the fireplace.

“Ow,” Jeremy said.

“I told you not to bait her,” Damon said, and if his tone was harsh, it was probably because Jeremy hadn’t listened to him when they were discussing the best way to get information out of Katherine.

“She didn’t really hurt me,” Jeremy said, and Damon snorted.

“No, she just threw you into a couple walls and then broke your neck. That’s why you’re walking with a limp and look like somebody has been beating you.”

Jeremy craned his neck to see where Damon was pointing and winced. He had to admit it didn’t look very nice. “I was wearing my ring, she couldn’t have killed me, not for real.”

“Sometimes your lack of interest in self preservation is charming, and other times I think it needs to be curbed,” Damon said. “Take off your clothes, let me see what the damage is.”

Jeremy rolled his eyes and tried to shove off his jeans without bending over but wasn’t quite able to do it without his body objecting. He had his back to the door when he heard it open again and somebody swore loudly.

“Oh my god,” Tyler said, and Jeremy put his hands over his face. This was his life, of course it was, and things couldn't get much worse until they did, he needed to just accept that.

“I'm not looking,” Jeremy said. “Damon, is he still standing there?”

“Still staring at you with his mouth hanging open,” Damon said, and Jeremy groaned.

The moment had passed, and Jeremy wasn't standing in the parlor in his boxers waiting for Damon to do something, anything he wanted, he was about to die of embarrassment. Not only that but Damon was staring at Tyler and holding a hot poker in one hand as if he wanted to use it on Tyler, and with Damon, Jeremy was never sure that he wouldn't if Tyler said the wrong thing.

“Hi, Tyler,” Jeremy said, and turned enough to see Tyler's wide eyes as he gurgled incredulously at them.

“Jeremy, what are you doing?”

“I was invited,” Jeremy said. “I could ask you the same thing, I know that Damon didn't ask you here.”

“I asked Caroline what was going on,” Tyler said, and Damon's eyes narrowed as Jeremy turned back to him. “She told me to talk to Stefan.”

“I thought he got it,” Jeremy said desperately to Damon. “This wasn't my fault.”

“Of course it's not,” Tyler said. “I just came over, I didn't tell him that I was going to come and check on you.”

Jeremy didn't look at Tyler, he was waiting for Damon to do something. “It's not my fault,” Jeremy said distinctly, and Damon's eyes shifted from Tyler to Jeremy.

“It's your fault when I say it is,” Damon said and twirled the poker deftly in one hand. Jeremy’s eyes tracked its progress, and when Tyler made a sound, he looked over to see he was doing the same.

“Shouldn't you put that down?” Tyler asked, backing toward the door.

“I don't feel like it,” Damon said. “Besides, I haven't decided if I'm going to use it yet or not.”

“Okay, that's it,” Tyler said. He rushed forward, grabbed Jeremy by the arm, and yanked him backwards. “Come on, I'm getting you out of here.”

“Let go,” Jeremy said, but Tyler hadn't made a career out of drug dealing and hanging out behind bleachers and in cemeteries, he'd been a jock practically since he could walk, and he lifted Jeremy off his feet and toward the door. “Tyler, I'm fine, just-” Jeremy tugged at Tyler's hands, and when he didn't let go, turned around and aimed a fist at his face.

“You've lost it,” Tyler said, and spun Jeremy around and got him on the floor in some kind of wrestling move that Jeremy would have been impressed by if he didn't want Tyler to butt out and mind his own damn business.

There was a snarl from behind them, and Tyler was wrenched off Jeremy and thrown aside. “Back off, puppy,” Damon said, and Jeremy grabbed Damon’s belt loops and levered himself up.

“You're not human either,” Tyler said, his voice fearful and disbelieving, and Damon didn't seem to care that he'd outed himself to Tyler.

“Touch him again and I'll show you just how much you don't know.”

“You need to leave Jeremy alone,” Tyler said. “You're not the only scary thing around, and if you don't back off you're going to have real problems.”

“The only problem I currently have is you, and trust me, kid,” Damon said and laughed, “You do not want to find out what my bad side is like.”

“Do you have a good side?” Jeremy asked, trying to ease the tension, and Damon slapped him lightly on the back of the head.

“Brat.”

“He doesn't, really,” Jeremy said to Tyler and shrugged. “He's mostly degrees of weird.” He paused. “And scary. Mostly scary.”

“Shut it,” Damon said, and when Tyler sort of folded himself down onto a chair and stared at him, Damon went back to staring speculatively at Jeremy.

“Where were we?” Jeremy asked.

“Right about here,” Damon said, and put a hand lightly on the lowest bruise on Jeremy's left hip.

Jeremy exhaled shakily. “Yeah.” As Damon's fingers tightened, he corrected himself. “I mean, yes, I remember.”

“What happened to you?” Tyler asked, and Jeremy twitched. He'd forgotten that there was anybody else there, and now that he remembered they weren't alone, he tried to curl in on himself, but Damon’s hand went to his stomach, fingers spread out, a warning, and Jeremy held still.

“I got hurt,” Jeremy said, and Tyler scoffed.

“Yeah, and why are you protecting this bastard?”

“First off, because he wouldn't do this to me without my permission, and second, I got myself in trouble, and third, if he had done this, I'd thank him,” Jeremy said in a rush and tried to ignore the blush that he could feel spreading.

Tyler coughed. “I get it.”

“No, you really don't,” Damon said and sounded bored. “You don't need to, so run along.”

“I'm not going anywhere until I'm sure that you're not the one that gave Jeremy those bruises,” Tyler said. There was something about his voice that made Damon look at him.

“This matters to you.”

“Yeah, it does,” Tyler said, his voice rising. “So tell me what's going on, or I'm going to call up Sheriff Forbes and tell her you've got a minor in here and you've been hurting him.”

“Please, give Liz a call, we've been meaning to get a drink together, but this week has been a killer,” Damon said, and Jeremy rolled his eyes.

“Do you have to do that?”

“Watch it,” Damon said, and Jeremy put a hand up.

“Time out, we've got an audience, Damon, let's take care of this first, then you can count my bruises.”

“I can count them from here,” Tyler said, and Damon shook his head.

“You, shut up.”

“Hey, dude, as far as I can tell, you're probably the one that did this to Jeremy, why shouldn't I get him out of here?”

“Because he doesn't want to leave,” Damon said. “If he did, he knows where the door is.”

“I'm not listening to you,” Tyler said and took out his cell phone.

“Tyler, don't, Damon, please-” Jeremy said as Damon moved, and Jeremy could see where this would end up, and it was with Tyler's blood on the carpet and somebody who might be Jeremy's friend, dead.

“You should listen to Jeremy,” Damon said as he tightened his fingers around Tyler's throat and effortlessly lifted him off the ground and tossed him in the direction of a chair, and Tyler landed on the floor hard, but when Jeremy went over, he managed to get up without any help.

“Great guy you've found,” Tyler said, and Jeremy shrugged.

“He grows on you.”

“Why would you stick around long enough for him to brainwash you into thinking he's a good guy?” Tyler asked.

“I don't know, because he doesn’t lie to me?” Jeremy said through clenched teeth, because there was Tyler being concerned and then there was him not seeing the freaking forest because he was staring at one tree. “How come Vicki came back every single time?”

Tyler shook his head. “Don't go there, Gilbert.”

“Why not? We both dated her, and I loved her.”

“So did I.”

“Not enough to be good to her,” Jeremy said, and thought Tyler was going to punch him when Damon clucked his tongue at them.

“Children, settle down, I don't want to have to spank you.”

“Like hell,” Tyler said. “You're not touching me.” His fists were at his sides, but the way he was standing told Jeremy that he was still ready to attack Damon if he had the chance, and this was a little much for somebody he could barely stand most days.

“Oh,” Damon said in comprehension, and Jeremy glanced over. “It's like that then, is it?”

“Like what?” Tyler asked.

“Do you really want me to tell?” Damon asked, stepping close, and Tyler glared at him, but his hands were shaking.

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You really aren't sorry he's dead, are you?” Damon asked, and Jeremy frowned.

“Who are we talking about?”

“I bet a part of you was so happy that you were sick about it,” Damon said. “You used to dream that something would happen to him, hope that it would, and then when you found out he was dead, you thought that it was you that had done it somehow.”

Tyler's face had lost all color and Jeremy felt sick. “Your dad?” Tyler turned to look at Jeremy, his expression furious and hurt all at once, and Jeremy wanted to yell at Damon for doing this to him, even if he had a reason.

“It wasn't your fault,” Jeremy said and Tyler shook his head.

“I know that. There was an accident.”

“No, John Gilbert is a righteous asshole,” Damon said. “It turns out werewolves have good hearing, just like vampires, and Jonathan Gilbert's device works on them too. Your dad got chucked in the basement with the rest of us, and John Gilbert would have let him burn if a vampire hadn't gotten to him first.”

“No,” Tyler said and his head jerked to the side in denial. “That's not what happened.”

“Why do you think you crashed that car?” Damon asked. “I heard what Matt said. You heard it too but your dad tried to get you out of range, even if he couldn't do the same thing.”

“He was trying to look out for you,” Jeremy said. “That's something.”

“Not a lot,” Tyler said thickly and slumped down in a chair, staring down at the floor.

Damon crossed the room with a glass of bourbon and extended it to Tyler. “Here,” Damon said and Tyler grabbed the glass and swallowed it all in a gulp. He winced and coughed but held out the glass for more.

“How did you know?”

“It's written all over you,” Damon said and when Tyler looked up at him, more vulnerable than Jeremy thought he'd ever want anybody to ever see, Damon smiled, but in the way that meant he wasn't thinking about anything but well-deserved murder and handed Tyler the full glass back. “And I've seen it before.”

“What happened? To you?” Tyler asked.

“I wasn't the one to kill him,” Damon said. “I'd still like to have been the one that did it.” He shrugged. “But there are other ways to deal.”

“Like killing other people?” Jeremy asked and Damon grinned.

“Among other things.” Damon's gaze rested on Jeremy, and he seemed pleased. “So, is that what's got you worried? You think I'm taking out my issues on Jeremy?”

“Are you?” Tyler asked.

“The question is, why does it matter to you?” Damon asked, pacing toward Tyler slowly and giving him time to start getting nervous. “You barely notice Jeremy except when he gets in your face.”

“Not anymore,” Tyler said and shrank back a little when Damon gave him a pointed look. “I mean, not much. Look, I'm not good at being friends with people who piss me off all the time.”

“You should try it,” Jeremy said and couldn't help grinning at Damon.

“Yeah, I'm not hoping to get into a sadistic love triangle with you two,” Tyler said and Jeremy coughed while Damon laughed.

“It might do you some good.”

“No, it really wouldn't,” Tyler said.

“Have you ever tried it?” Damon asked and didn’t miss the look that Tyler shared with Jeremy.“If you two had gotten your heads together you might have been able to make it work.”

“Can we not talk about this?” Tyler asked.

“Fine,” Damon said and leaned an arm against the edge of the mantle. “What did you want to talk about?”

“If you’re not going to tell me how Jeremy got hurt, how do I even know you can take care of him?” Tyler waved a hand. “Some of those could be really bad.”

“You’ve done worse during gym,” Jeremy said.

“No I haven’t,” Tyler said.

“Third grade,” Jeremy said. “You pushed me off the swings and knocked out a couple of teeth.”

“We were kids,” Tyler said. “I don’t know what Damon is, besides a psychotic vampire, but he’s not a kid.”

“Neither am I,” Jeremy said. “Damon knows what he’s doing.”

“Yeah?” Tyler asked and looked skeptical. “What do you even know about hospitals?”

“I have been in one before, and not just because I was window shopping,” Damon said lightly, and both Jeremy and Tyler glanced at him in surprise.

“Where?” Tyler asked.

“Chimborazo, that's where I went after I was wounded.” Damon shrugged. “Well, the time when I got leave afterward.”

“What's that?” Jeremy asked.

“It was a hospital in Richmond,” Damon said. When Tyler stared at him blankly, Damon waved a hand. “Explain it to him. I'm not interested in a history lesson.”

“Why were you in a hospital?” Tyler asked. “Were you in the army?”

“Oh yeah,” Jeremy said, and laughed.

Tyler gave him a look. “What?”

“Nothing, Damon did serve in the army, but it was the Army of Virginia.”

“There isn't an army in Virginia,” Tyler said.

“Not now,” Jeremy said, and would have stretched out explaining things if Damon hadn't tapped him sharply on one of his bruises. “They fought during the Civil War.”

Tyler snorted. “Gilbert, this whole set up is really screwed up and you're not helping. I can believe that he’s a vampire and does some screwed up stuff, but come on.” Tyler stood up. “The Civil War? Is that the best you've got?”

“How about pictures?” Jeremy asked, and waved at Damon. “He's got some lying around.” He glanced at Damon. “Right? Stefan would save that stuff somewhere.”

“Is Stefan like you? I mean, underneath the smile and everything?” Tyler asked and Damon laughed.

“Oh, my brother is nothing like me, not in any way he wants to admit.”

“Yeah, for one he's not a jerk,” Tyler said, not very softly.

“I know,” Jeremy said, and Tyler stared at him.

“Then why are you hanging around him? He's got you thinking he's over a hundred years old and that he was a Confederate soldier. Come on, Jeremy, you've done a lot of stupid stuff, but this is over the top even for you.”

He was staring at Jeremy’s bruises again, and it made him self-conscious. “Can I put on a shirt now?”

“No,” Damon said. “Sit down in front of the couch.”

Jeremy sighed but sat down. He ignored the look Tyler gave him and waited for Damon to come over. When he did, Damon walked right past both of them and went to a large book sitting on one of the tables.

“You know, most of us, if we live long enough, learn how to leave things behind,” Damon said. “But, you have people like my brother,” he rolled his eyes, “who can't help but keep the past alive, like if they can touch something from back then, it's going to teach them something.”

“You don't think that?” Tyler asked belligerently.

“I can hold a musket and shoot it just like I’d just left Cold Harbor,” Damon said. “I know how to set bones and amputate limbs with my eyes closed, and I know the sound of a man dying in the grass while he smothers to death beneath bodies stacked three men high.” Damon looked over his shoulder at Tyler and smiled unnervingly. “I just use the past differently than Stefan.”

“But don't you care about any of this?” Jeremy asked. He got a look for that. he was supposed to be silent unless he was told he could talk, but he wondered about it. “I mean, this is your family history.”

“No, Jeremy, it's what I lived. I remember all of it, and I know better than to try and make it something that it wasn't. I grew up in a house even bigger than this.” Damon's gaze swung to Tyler. “Until the Founders decided to hunt down anybody that was different and kill them. Somehow, the Lockwoods hid the fact that they weren't human either. All because they didn't care who they had to hurt to keep their secrets.”

“If you're what they were trying to save the town from, then they must have been way ahead of the rest of us,” Tyler said, and unconsciously showed his teeth.

Damon noticed and smirked. “Moon's pulling on you, isn't it, puppy? Starting to feel like you can take me on?”

“I'll come for you anytime,” Tyler said, and Damon shook his head.

“Yeah, your uncle said the same thing. That didn't turn out so well for him.”

“What did he ever do to you?” Tyler asked, half rising out of his chair.

Jeremy groaned. “Damon, don't do this.”

“He keeps trying to blame somebody else for what's happening, to you, to him, when what he really needs to understand is that he's a part of this too, whether he likes it or not, and if he doesn't make the right choice right here, I'm going to see to it that he gets buried in the same grave as his ancestors.”

“This isn't helping,” Jeremy said and Damon's mouth curved upwards.

“That's two.”

“Two what?” Tyler asked, but Damon ignored his question as his cell phone rang.

“What?” Damon asked as he answered and turned to Jeremy, rolling his eyes.

'Stefan?' Jeremy mouthed, and Damon looked bored.

“Hello, brother,” Damon said. “Yes, I'm just dandy, and yes, Tyler is here.” Damon paused. “No, I don't mean his body, I mean he is talking and annoying me even as we speak.” He listened to whatever Stefan was saying and then sighed. “And he wants to know if you have any of the letters I sent you when I was in the army. Yes, really.” Damon shook his head sadly. “He doesn't believe me when I say you're not dead, what kind of brother does he think I am?”

“His,” Jeremy said, and didn't care when Damon held up three fingers warningly.

“He's freaked out,” Jeremy said.

“That's not your problem,” Damon said.

“I know you don't care,” Jeremy said, as if it wasn't completely obvious to all three of them, “but he's not a completely bad guy, I mean all the time.”

“Thanks,” Tyler said. “Remind me never to pick you for debate team.”

“Shut up,” Jeremy said. “I'm trying to help you.”

Damon was still listening to whatever Stefan was saying, and finally he set the phone on the table. “Here, it's on speaker, tell my brother that I haven't killed you, yet.”

Tyler glared at Damon. “Stefan?”

“Tyler? Are you all right?”

“Right now I'm fine,” Tyler said. “Your brother is being an asshole.”

Stefan laughed a little bit and Jeremy was relieved. If Stefan could tell that Tyler wasn't really in danger then there wasn't going to be any real trouble. “Yeah, that's normal for Damon.” Stefan cleared his throat. “Did you need a ride home?”

“Do I?” Tyler asked Jeremy, and he glanced at Damon and shrugged.

“Only if you want one,” Jeremy said.

“I think I'll be fine,” Tyler said. “I want to know something. Did your brother serve in the army?”

There was a silence from Stefan's end of the telephone and when he didn't answer right away, Tyler leaned toward the phone. “Stefan?”

Jeremy shrugged. “It's, well, not okay, but we're handling it.”

“Damon's way?” Stefan asked.

Jeremy winced.“Mostly not.”

“I told you that Tyler was still breathing,” Damon said and Stefan let out a noise that could have been frustrated, Jeremy couldn't tell.

“Damon-”

“Remember I came home on leave?” Damon asked. “After I got hurt?”

Tyler stared at Damon, plainly not sure if he was making this entire thing up, but like most people in town, he was ready to listen to Stefan, even if his brother was being obnoxious.

“We got word that you'd been wounded during the Siege of Petersburg,” Stefan said.

Tyler shook his head and laughed harshly. “I have to say, when you guys commit to something crazy, you really commit.”

“As if you can judge, wolf boy,” Damon said, and Tyler's shoulders hunched up around his ears.

“Damon,” Stefan said, and Jeremy could hear the disapproval in his voice.

“Well, go on then, reassure the werewolf,” Damon said and picked up the poker again. “I can wait.”

“Tyler, trust me, there’s nothing going on that you need to be worried about,” Stefan said. He must have realized how that sounded because he went on. “Damon hasn’t done anything to Jeremy that was against his will.”

“That makes it okay?” Tyler asked. “He’s got bites on him and he’s all bruised.”

“It was from Katherine,” Jeremy said quickly so that Stefan wouldn’t jump up and hurry over to take him home.

“Who's Katherine?” Tyler asked.

“She's a vampire,” Jeremy said. “You need to watch out for her.” He glanced at Damon. “She looks like my sister.”

“Okay,” Tyler said, and Jeremy spoke over him.

“I mean she looks exactly like her, so if you see Elena and she's acting weird, you need to get away from her fast.”

“You can't take her on,” Damon said. “So don't even try.”

“This is crazy,” Tyler said.

“You wanted to know what's been going on with me,” Jeremy said. “This is it.”

“I shouldn’t have asked,” Tyler said.

“Now you know better,” Damon said and grinned at Tyler.

Stefan cleared his throat and Jeremy jumped. He'd forgotten that Stefan was still listening. “It sounds like you have some things to get figured out. Jeremy, can you handle this?”

Jeremy glanced at Damon. “Yeah, thanks, Stefan, it's going to be fine.”

There was a noise from Stefan that sounded like he wasn't sure he should hang up but he couldn’t think of anything else to say and then the line disconnected.

Damon bounced up and down a couple times and Tyler twitched and looked at him.

“I'll walk you out,” Jeremy said, and Tyler nodded rapidly. They were almost to the door when Damon called after them.

“Just tell Caroline not to bite too hard.”

Tyler spun around and shook his head. “Who said anything about Caroline?”

“Oh please, you weren't just asking all these questions because you want to get Jeremy behind the bleachers after school,” Damon said. “You're way too in denial for that, so you want to know about what vampires get up to in bed.”

Tyler looked like he couldn't decide whether he wanted to run out the door or try and punch Damon.

“You should thank me,” Damon said. “If I hadn't given her my blood you wouldn’t be having this sexual awakening.”

Jeremy groaned. “Please stop talking.”

Damon ignored him and kept holding Tyler's gaze. “Just remember, she's stronger than you and she tends to be a little high strung.”

Tyler was standing there with his mouth open a little bit, as if he had reached an overload of Damon-ness and couldn't decide what to do. That was a sign Jeremy needed to get him out of the boardinghouse before Damon decided to start playing with him for real.

“You should go and talk to Caroline,” Jeremy said. “Right now.”

“Sharing is essential in a relationship,” Damon said, and Jeremy hissed at him to shut up.

“Call me,” Jeremy said, and caught the shift in Damon's expression. “Later.”

Tyler wasn't as dumb as he pretended to be, and quickly headed for the door. When they were standing in the doorway, Tyler tried to smile at Jeremy and it looked pained but sincere.

"It's just freaky that you let him do that to you," Tyler said. "You're usually louder," Tyler said. "You don't let people boss you around."

"Not most people," Jeremy said, because Damon was the exception that was redefining what his rules were and he was comfortable with Damon giving him orders.

Tyler coughed. "Yeah, I noticed." He rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the ground.

To Jeremy it looked like he wanted to say something but was pretty sure that it was going to come out wrong.

"What is it now?" It was cold outside and Jeremy wasn't wearing many clothes and shivered.

Tyler shrugged. "You're really okay? With Damon I mean?"

Jeremy nodded.

"He's not human,” Tyler said.

Jeremy had to laugh. “You're a werewolf, and we’re kind of friends, how does this make me any weirder?”

That got him a longer look, and Tyler was measuring him against some standard in his head because after a moment he laughed softly and nodded. “Yeah, you've always been pretty messed up, Gilbert.”

From Tyler that was probably meant to be a compliment and Jeremy waved him off and made sure he actually got into his car and drove away. Then he headed back into the house to deal with Damon and what his punishment was going to be.

~*~  
He didn't see Damon right away and Jeremy had to come down the steps into the main parlor before he caught sight of him stretched out on his back in front of the fireplace as if he'd been there all day.

“Uh, Tyler's gone home,” Jeremy said hesitantly.

Damon didn't move. “You're sure.”

“Yeah, I watched him drive off,” Jeremy said and walked over to stand beside Damon and sat down beside him, careful not to touch him until he got permission. Right now he felt like he was on one side of a wall, and Damon taken it down. It wasn't anything that Jeremy could have explained except that he could feel that Damon wasn't paying attention to him as if Jeremy was the only thing that he cared about even if Jeremy was in trouble. Jeremy was feeling like he had done more than screw up a little bit and he hadn't thought that interrupting Damon and keeping Tyler from being killed wasn't that bad. “Did you want me to do something. Or leave?”

“I didn't tell you that you could do anything,” Damon said and Jeremy hunched down and stared straight ahead.

“I know, I'm sorry.” Jeremy glanced at Damon and saw him turn his head to look at him.

“About what?”

“I messed up.”

Damon rolled onto his side, facing Jeremy, and although they weren't touching, it was a signal that Jeremy could look at him directly and he did. “Yes, you did, but do you know how?”

“The whole thing with Tyler,” Jeremy said.

“That's not everything,” Damon said sharply, and Jeremy winced.

“I interrupted.” But Jeremy wasn't actually sorry that he'd distracted Damon from killing Tyler just for being a werewolf and worrying that Jeremy was in trouble. “I'm not sorry for that.” Jeremy glanced up at Damon and curled in on himself when there wasn't even a hint of forgiveness in his expression.

“I know you're not,” Damon said. “I didn't tell you to be sorry.”

“What do you want me to do?” Jeremy asked. “I know I'm in trouble.”

“Yes you are.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Do you think you've earned an answer?” Damon asked, and Jeremy shrugged and immediately knew that wasn't the right thing to do and sat upright.

“Tell me what I have to do,” Jeremy said. “I don't want to stop doing this with you.”

Damon put a hand on Jeremy's chest to ground him or keep him from freaking out any more than he was already doing. “This isn't something that we stop because you made a mistake.” He smiled. “You're used to that, and it stops now. Mistakes should be paid for.”

“Is that what you do with yours?” Jeremy asked and then wanted to bite his tongue. He was trying not to make this harder on himself and instead he couldn't stop talking.

“See, I don't have to deal with the consequences if I don't want to,” Damon said.

“How do you do that?” Jeremy asked. He didn't see that Stefan would let Damon forget about something that Stefan thought was wrong, but vampires had to have other ways of getting over painful things and when Damon had come to tell him that Anna was dead he'd made being a vampire sound like a good way to forget about your problems.

“There are ways,” Damon said. “But this isn't about my issues, Jeremy, you're the one who broke the rules.”

“Your rules,” Jeremy said. He didn't want to deal with what Damn was going to do to him, but he also wanted to hear more about what had happened to Damon. Jeremy had made his choices, but he didn't know why Damon had made the ones he did.

Damon narrowed his eyes. “You're stalling.”

Of course Damon would have picked up on that part of it. “Partly, yeah.” He looked away, it might help if he didn't hold eye contact with Damon for too long and let him know that Jeremy wasn't questioning him being in charge. He just wanted to know more and it was hard to know when Damon would feel like sharing.

“Tell me why,” Damon said.

“You were telling Tyler stuff about the war.”

Damon didn't interrupt and Jeremy took that as a good sign.

“Will you finish the story?”

Damon smirked and shook his head. “I don't know that you deserve a story.”

“Please?” Jeremy asked. He couldn't figure out what would get Damon to keep talking.

“No, you have to work for what you want,” Damon said.

That didn't seem fair, especially since Jeremy was positive Damon had never accepted that. “Why is that?”

“I said so,” Damon said and leaned over to nip Jeremy's ear.

Jeremy let out a yelp and shivered when Damon licked his neck. He moved closer and stretched his neck out so Damon could get at it better.

“You came home on leave after you got hurt?”

“Yes,” Damon said.

“How did you get hurt?”

Damon breathed out slowly against Jeremy's nape. “I got shot.”

Jeremy twisted around to stare at Damon. “How bad was it?”

“I didn't lose anything important,” Damon said. “I'd hope that your school at least told you that much.” He snorted. “Although I don't hold out a lot of hope for this country's educational system.”

“Alaric was our teacher by that point,” Jeremy said and felt the need to defend somebody who Damon liked, even if he seemed to make fun of people automatically. “He told us about how bad it was.”

“Cleaned up, I'm sure,” Damon said and seemed to be fascinated with how long Jeremy's hair was getting in the back. He tugged on it, twisted it around his fingers and pulled more firmly and Jeremy fell backwards and ended up on his back and staring up at Damon.

“If you think Alaric did such a bad job you should fix it,” Jeremy said and let Damon see him smile and then tried to look serious. He was still going to get punished, but every second he put it off was longer for Damon to think it over and make it something incredibly good.

“This isn't typical pillow talk,” Damon said. He was staring at Jeremy as if he could find some answer in Jeremy's face.

“Tell me anyway? Please?”

“You'll have to show you want it,” Damon said and rested his hips on Jeremy's lower body so that he couldn't have gotten away if he had been struggling for his life.  
That wasn't what this was about and Jeremy consciously let all of the tension go out of him even though he was still nervous about what he would have to do to earn a story.

“I will,” Jeremy said and Damon was up and standing across the room in a dizzying blur of speed. “Then come here.”

Jeremy moved to get up and Damon shook his head.

“You haven't earned that yet.”

Jeremy grimaced. “Then what am I supposed to do?”

“Figure it out,” Damon said and his eyes narrowed.

It took Jeremy a moment, and then he crawled toward Damon on his hands and knees. When he reached Damon, he kept his head down and leaned his head against Damon's legs.

Damon let him stay on his knees for several minutes and Jeremy wanted to shift, because even through the thick rug the floor was hard.

“You're not used to being still,” Damon said.

Jeremy shook his head. In class he could fidget or play with a pencil or move around, that was the closest he'd ever been to holding still when he wanted to be anywhere else, but this was way different. He was trying to prove himself to Damon and he was focusing on that instead of the fact that his legs were starting to go to sleep.

“I should take you hunting,” Damon said and Jeremy jerked his head to the side.

He wasn't sure if Damon meant the kind of hunting where Damon killed animals or if they were talking about people being the prey. That wasn't something he thought much about. On some level he knew that Damon drank blood and that it wasn't always from blood bags, but he hadn't ever seen it and wasn't sure that he could handle it without Damon being disappointed in him.

“That freaks you out,” Damon said and Jeremy nodded.

It wasn't a good idea to lie to Damon because if he didn't know, he'd find out and either way there would be consequences.

“Tell me why.”

“Would you be eating squirrels?” Jeremy asked.

Damon snorted and slapped Jeremy lightly on the back of the head. “Don't confuse me with Stefan. I don't hunt anything that can't scream or talk back.”

Hearing that didn't make Jeremy feel any better. “So you'd be killing somebody?”

“I didn't say that, but it could happen.”

“I thought you weren't killing people anymore,” Jeremy said and kept his voice low and tried to sound like he wasn't judging Damon.

“Who told you that?” Damon asked.

“Elena told me that you're trying to be a better person, and Bonnie told me that I needed to watch out for you.” She had been a lot less trusting than Elena and Jeremy's ears had been ringing after she told him just how stupid he was for getting into anything with Damon.

“She would,” Damon said and he sounded almost fond and Jeremy didn't like hearing Damon talking about anybody else that way. It was stupid of him because he knew that he was the only one that Damon was doing this with enough for it to matter.

“Was she wrong?” Jeremy asked. “Are you going to kill me?”

Damon smirked. “I didn't say that.”

“But you are killing people?” Jeremy wanted to say that he was okay with what it meant to be involved with a vampire but overlooking murder was a step that he couldn't take.

“I'm a vampire, Jeremy, I can't go vegetarian just because my diet makes some people uncomfortable.”

It must have been obvious to Damon that Jeremy was about ready to get up and leave because he crouched down on Jeremy's level and took his face in both hands so they were looking each other in the eye. “Since when has that been a surprise? I'm not a nice guy, Jeremy, you know that.”

With Damon’s hands on his face it would have been easy for him to move one, grab Jeremy around the neck, and twist the way he had that night Jeremy found Damon in Elena’s room. He was still wearing his ring, but Jeremy knew, the way they both did that Damon could take that off any time and death would be real and permanent.

"You're not planning on killing me." Jeremy thought that there might be a time when Damon decided there wasn't anything new that he could try with Jeremy and he didn't want to dwell on that if he could avoid it.

"No, I'm not," Damon said. He frowned. "You're not sure."

"I don't know what to think," Jeremy said. He was shaking a little bit and couldn't help it. "One minute it seems like we're solid and I know what's going on and then I mess up and you tell me I have to jump through hoops that I don't even understand so how can I do anything but get in trouble again?" His voice rose and he knew that he should calm down but he was getting cold and Damon hadn't explained himself yet.

"You're learning quickly," Damon said. "But the key to this is trust. You have to know that I won't hurt you." He paused. "Not more than you want even if you can't say it."

"How do I trust you when you start talking about killing people?" Jeremy asked. "That's not okay with me."

"I'm not going to hang around Mystic Falls forever," Damon said. "And I don't play by the same rules as Stefan and his friends."

"Is this a test?" Jeremy asked. "If I can't stand by and watch you kill somebody then I can't be with you?"

"You've already stood by while I killed someone," Damon said.

Jeremy paled. "Mason."

"Yes, and you tried to talk me out of it, which was precious, but in the end you didn't go for help, did you?"

Jeremy twisted out of Damon's hold and sat back so that he could stare at Damon. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"That's not what's wrong," Damon said. "You're already on your way down this road and you haven't even noticed." He reached out and put a hand on Jeremy's chest.

"Okay, and where's the part where I get punished?" Jeremy asked.

Damon slapped Jeremy's face lightly and Jeremy winced. It didn't hurt for more than a second but it got his attention. "You just can't stop running your mouth, can you?"

There wasn't anything to say to that and Jeremy shrugged. "I'm freaked out."

"I noticed," Damon said and got to his feet and pulled Jeremy upright with him and directed him toward the stairs and kept one hand firmly on the back of his neck. "We need to do something about that."

Telling him that they weren't going to be going out later to murder people would have been a good way to make Jeremy feel better, but if he said that he knew that whatever was coming would be even worse.

When they got to the top of the stairs Jeremy started to turn toward Stefan's room, but Damon steered him away. "Where are we going?"

"You'll see," Damon said and pushed open a door that Jeremy had never been through and into a bedroom.

There was a huge four-poster bed that looked like it belonged in a castle or something it was so huge and imposing. Next to it was a pile of books and the entire room was warm and inviting.

Jeremy stared around curiously. "Whose room is this?"

"It's mine," Damon said and nudged Jeremy in the back and Jeremy moved further into the room. He took his time and stared around the room. He'd been in Stefan's room enough that he had a sense of him, but this was way more open than he'd expected. Jeremy had thought about what Damon might do with private space if he had any and this hadn't been it.

"Were you expecting a cave?" Damon asked and Jeremy jumped.

"Of course not." He glanced over his shoulder and smiled ruefully. "Maybe, I didn't think that you had a bed of your own." Not with the way they used Stefan's, and that was another question that Jeremy wasn't sure he wanted to ask.

"I've always liked to mess with Stefan's things," Damon said and Jeremy wrinkled his nose.

"I hope you're not counting my sister as one of them." Elena didn't seem to be confused about what kind of person Damon was, but the images Damon's words conjured up in Jeremy's mind weren't anything that he wanted to linger on.

Damon smiled. "But I don't share everything."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Jeremy said and grinned at Damon.

"Do that," Damon said and then moved too fast to be seen and both he and Jeremy ended up on the bed.

Jeremy stared up at him and Damon smiled down at him for a moment then leaned down. He looked like he was going to kiss Jeremy, but when Jeremy stretched up to reach his mouth, Damon bit down hard on Jeremy's lower lip and when Jeremy let out a yelp of pain, Damon didn't stop until he'd broken the skin and licked the blood away.

"Turn over."

His lip throbbing, Jeremy rolled onto his stomach and rested turned his head so his mouth wasn't resting on the bedspread. The place where Damon had bitten him was still bleeding and he ran his tongue over it while he waited for Damon to do something.

He expected to hear Damon's belt come out of its loops and couldn't decide if he was disappointed or not when he only felt Damon's hands on his backside.

Damon ran his hands up Jeremy's back and then down, skimming lightly over his thighs and pressing his legs outward so that Damon could moved between them and then Jeremy could only close his legs around Damon.

From this position, Jeremy couldn't see much of what Damon was doing. He twisted his neck around a little more. That got Damon’s attention, and he leaned forward and put a hand squarely on the back of Jeremy's neck.

"Stay still." His voice was only a low rumble in Jeremy's ear and it was definitely not playful anymore.

"Now, I think a point needs to be made about knowing your place."

Jeremy's shoulders tensed and from where he was, Damon couldn't miss it.

"That's right. Now, I want you to think of a word to use when you think you can't take anymore."

"Vampire," Jeremy said, because he couldn't help it.

Damon slapped him lightly on the ass. "It has to be a word you wouldn't normally use."

In Mystic Falls, that meant all supernatural words were out, and Jeremy tried to think of something that he could remember under pressure.

"Stonewall," Jeremy said and Damon let out a soft laugh.

"This isn't a battlefield, Jeremy."

"It sure feels like it," Jeremy said.

"Fine, you can have it, but remind me to tell you about Old Blue Eyes later." Damon cleared his throat and then his focus shifted.

Jeremy waited for him to do something and knew he was breathing loudly and wasn't hiding anything from Damon, but that was part of the point and all he could do was lay there until Damon decided what he was going to do.

When the first blow landed, Jeremy yelled in surprise. Damon had hit him with his bare hand instead of his belt and Jeremy hadn't been ready for it. The second time Damon's hand landed on his skin, Jeremy clenched his teeth and then the third time Damon hit him in the same place as he had the first time and Jeremy let out a small noise.

"I want you to count," Damon said. "Out loud. When you think you've had all you can take, tell me."

Jeremy nodded and felt Damon touch him very lightly just above where he'd hit him.

"If you don't speak up and try to impress me I'm not going to be happy with you, Jeremy."

"I get it," Jeremy said and exhaled quickly once and then tried to breathe normally. "I'm ready."

"We'll see," Damon said and then he began spanking Jeremy in earnest.

Jeremy had never thought of being spanked as sexy. His parents never punished him with more than loud noise and words, and Jenna was still working on how to be his aunt and his guardian, and this was completely new. The last time Damon had done this, Jeremy had been overwhelmed, but it hadn't been about punishment and somehow the fact that Damon was using his hand made it better and at the same time more embarrassing somehow.

"You're not counting," Damon said and his hand came down even harder and Jeremy flinched.

"Sorry, sorry." He tried to remember how many times it had been. "Five."

"If you lose track again I'll start over from the beginning," Damon said. "You won't like that at all."

It was already clear that he was right and Jeremy made up his mind not to lose track again. "I'll remember."

After that, all he could think about was the count. Each time Damon's hand landed, he moved from one side to another and sometimes hitting the same place twice.

Jeremy gave the total in a voice that grew shakier. His ass felt like it was on fire and even the movement of air as Damon's hand descended was almost more than Jeremy could stand.

"Twenty eight," Jeremy gasped and then shuddered. His eyes were watering and it was hard for him to concentrate on much besides the pain in his ass, but somewhere between the first blow and this last one, he realized that he'd gotten hard and was rubbing his cock against the bedspread. He didn't think that Damon would be happy that he was getting off on this when it was supposed to be a punishment and he went still.

Damon had already noticed. "You know I can tell when you're aroused." He ran his fingertips very lightly over Jeremy's ass and laughed when Jeremy flinched. "Your pulse speeds up and you smell really good."

That didn't sound like it was a good thing, not at the moment, and Jeremy stayed quiet.

"Don't think you can hide things from me, Jeremy. Even when you don't say anything, I can read your body and it's more honest than your mouth."

Then without any other warning, he hit Jeremy again.

Jeremy wasn't ready for it and swore loudly, which got him three more blows in quick succession. By the end of it, Jeremy knew he was crying and even though he was trying to do it quietly, his voice was thick with tears when he spoke up. "Please, Damon, S-stonewall, please stop, please."

He hadn't known if Damon would let up, but when Jeremy said 'Stonewall,' Damon sat back immediately.

"There you go," Damon said and pushed Jeremy over. Even having that little bit of contact with the bedspread made him flinch and he resisted when Damon eased him fully onto his side. "Hey," Damon said and put a hand on Jeremy's face. "Come on, we're done, you're fine."

Jeremy wanted to tell him that he wasn't okay and that he probably wouldn't be able to walk home, but he was so glad that Damon was touching him that he didn’t care.

“Is that it?” Jeremy asked. His voice was scratchy and he coughed and tried again. “Did I do okay?”

Damon smiled and tapped Jeremy’s nose. “You did very well.”

Jeremy still didn’t know what he’d done other than cry and say ‘Stonewall’ when he’d been about ready to promise Damon just about anything to get him to let up.

“Do you have any idea what the point of that was?” Damon asked.

“You wanted me to admit that you were right,” Jeremy said.

“Is that what you think?”

Jeremy inched forward until he could slide his head underneath Damon's chin. “Mostly.”

Damon's hand settled on Jeremy's head and he stroked his hair soothingly. If Jeremy hadn't been asked a question he could have fallen asleep like that in only a couple of seconds. But Damon wanted him to answer and Jeremy shifted so his mouth was resting on Damon's shoulder and breathed in the scent of his cologne and rubbed his face against the fabric of his shirt. “You're still dressed.”

The fingers in Jeremy's hair shifted and twisted slightly. “Nice try, kiddo, answer the question and don't try and wriggle out of it.”

Jeremy didn't know that he was going to be able to get up and figured that sarcasm wasn't a good idea but he dug his chin into Damon's chest a little bit in revenge before he answered.

“I was supposed to back you up in front of Tyler.”

Damon waited to see if Jeremy was going to add anything else, and when he didn't, snapped his fingers. “What else?”

“I have to say it even though you know what I mean?” Jeremy asked. He knew the answer but he wanted to put it in words and draw another boundary for himself.

“Then stop dithering,” Damon said.

Jeremy frowned. “Sometimes you sound like you're Jenna's age and others it's like you're-”

“Really old and showing amazing patience by not turning you over my knee again?” Damon asked.

“That’s one way of putting it,” Jeremy said and Damon’s mouth twitched

Damon didn’t say anything to give Jeremy any warning. Instead he pushed Jeremy over onto his stomach and slid a thigh between Jeremy’s legs.

“Hey-“ Jeremy said and Damon slid a hand over his mouth.

“Shh, now’s not the time for talking,” Damon said and his free hand slid down Jeremy’s body.

Jeremy understood that this wasn't only about making him feel good. Damon was telling him something, and with every slide of his fingers around Jeremy's cock he was hammering it home. He'd mouthed off and more than that, he'd questioned Damon and that wasn't allowed.

All the tension made him buck and arch upward into every touch, but when Jeremy groaned and felt himself close to orgasm, Damon reached down and grabbed the base of his cock way too hard.

“What the fuck?” Jeremy said, his voice going up in pained surprised. “I was almost there?”

Damon's fingers twisted again and Jeremy whimpered. “Sorry, sorry.”

“You don't ever do that without my permission,” Damon said. “And that's not something you're going to be getting for awhile.”

Jeremy blinked tears out of his eyes. “What?”

“Do you think you deserve it?” Damon asked, and before Jeremy could answer, he lifted his other hand and locked it around Jeremy’s throat. He pulled Jeremy backwards until his muscles were screaming and he couldn't hold in the groan of pain. That was when Damon ease up slightly because Jeremy understood what he was telling him.

“Answer the question.”

“I don’t know,” Jeremy said. His ass was throbbing in time with his heartbeat and he wanted to get off but Damon wasn’t concerned about either of those things and it didn’t seem like he was going to let up on Jeremy until he got an answer.

“That’s not up to me,” Jeremy said at last. “I’m not the one who decides that.” He breathed in and out carefully and then pressed a kiss to Damon’s hand in apology. “You do.”

“Very good,” Damon said and his hand moved again and Jeremy arched up into it and let himself go.

~*~

Much later Jeremy turned just far enough over in bed that he could watch Damon getting dressed. "It's weird."

Damon looked at Jeremy in the mirror. "What is?"

"To think that you're as old as you are." It wasn't the most diplomatic thing he'd ever said but Damon laughed.

"No, I don't look it."

Jeremy frowned. "Especially your clothes."

"What, you think that vampires shouldn't keep up with the times?" Damon asked. "Although I should see if I can dig up some photographs of Stefan during the eighties." He shuddered theatrically. "It's horrible."

"Did he get into it?" Jeremy asked. He liked hearing about the way Damon and Stefan lived and the image he had in his head of Stefan was pretty funny.

"Stefan has always been very eager to blend in," Damon said. "Sometimes that leads to unfortunate choices."

"Like what?"

"Mullets," Damon said.

"Please tell me you've got pictures," Jeremy said and grinned.

"There might be some."

"Do you have any of you?"

Damon shrugged and smooth down his collar before he turned around. "I don't know, maybe." He eyed Jeremy. "What are you looking for?"

"I was wondering if there were any of you from back when you were my age."

"You mean before I became a bloodthirsty fiend?" Damon asked. He didn't seem upset, but Jeremy was careful to tread lightly so the mood didn't change.

"I meant," Jeremy said, stressing the last word, "that I wanted to see some pictures of you. I don't care when they're from."

"The library has a lot of stuff archived," Damon said but he'd picked up on what Jeremy was asking. "I tell you what, if you can find something from back then, you get another story.”

That sounded way too easy. "Like what?"

"Newspapers would be fine," Damon said.

"Were you in the paper?" Jeremy asked.

"This is a small town and the Salvatores are a very old family," Damon said. "Now go on, you've got things to do and so do I."

~*~

Anna had given back John Gilbert's journal and that was the first place Jeremy looked for information. It wasn't cheating, he thought of it as using the resources he had on hand and he read the journal more thoroughly than he had the time before and things were more clear with what he knew now.

John Gilbert was definitely a crazy inventor, but he was also good about noting the changes that were happening in his town during 1864. Everyone was affected by the Civil War and that had most people worried, but John Gilbert was thinking about threats closer to home.

As Jeremy read, he tried to determine when the Founders had realized that people weren't dying of some disease but that they had vampires living right alongside them. He didn't find a moment when it dawned on him, but little things piled up and eventually the Founders began meeting and raising an improbably question.

'I spoke to Giuseppe Salvatore last evening. He was adamant that the danger to our town lies not with the enemy troops but is something more insidious that we are overlooking.'

Jeremy turned the page and saw sketches of a soldier and then the same figure but with a monstrous face. It didn't look anything like a vampire, but Jonathan Gilbert had been considering the possibilities and they frightened him.

It was interesting to read and know some of what had actually happened, but Jeremy was searching for Damon's family and he skimmed until he found the name 'Salvatore' again.

'Giuseppe’s eldest has returned home on leave. I was told that he has been wounded in battle but will recover. Have sent the family my regards and hope to speak with the boy in town.'

That boy was Damon, and Jeremy tried to find an entry saying that they had met up and what they had talked about but he couldn't find it.

There were a lot of drawings of what looked like strange machines. Some of them were things that Jeremy could tell were everyday objects with modifications, and among them was a pocket watch, drawn two different ways, but others were plainly original designs and Jeremy had no clue what they were supposed to do.

When Elena walked into the kitchen and found him hunched over and trying to recreate a thing that looked like a cross between a muzzle and a mask she stopped and peered over his shoulder.

"You know he did end up making that one," she said in Jeremy's ear and he spun around.

"Would you not sneak up on me?"

"Sorry." Elena smiled and didn't look even a little bit sorry. "Why are you drawing that, we have one."

"We do?"

"Yeah, it was in a box of Dad's old stuff, hang on, and let me get it." Elena went to the hall closet and staggered back into the kitchen and set it heavily on the table. "I think Jenna put more crap in here when I wasn't looking."

Jeremy got up and tugged the lid open and they both looked inside.

Elena reached in. "Here it is. I remember I put it back in here when Stefan and I were looking for the diary." She handed it to Jeremy.

"Did Stefan say what it was?" Jeremy asked as he turned the strange thing over in his hands. It had a metal faceplate and leather straps. "It looks like something you'd put on a dog."

"It's way too small for a dog," Elena said and as Jeremy raised it up to get a better look at it, the thought dawned on them both at the same second.

"They made it for vampires," Jeremy said and Elena let out a soft noise.

"No wonder Stefan looked at it the way he did," Elena said and when Jeremy glanced her, she went on. "I thought he was going to throw it out the window for a second but we didn't have a chance to talk about it later."

Jeremy frowned. “I think I saw it in Jonathan Gilbert’s journal, he must have designed it.”

"That figures," Elena said. "He made a compass that was supposed to find vampires but it only worked when a witch put a spell on it. That's what had happened during the Founders Day celebration. Uncle John set off the device when he was trying to kill all the vampires. Stefan and Damon included." She paused. “And Anna.”

Jeremy ducked his head and nodded. Damon had come to talk to him afterward and he’d been almost kind, and Jeremy hadn’t ever thanked him for breaking the news as gently as he could. He didn’t know what to do about what Uncle John had done, but he’d come to terms with it. When they took Anna away, he’d known he wouldn’t see her again. But Uncle John hadn’t known he and Anna were that close. They hadn’t been as obvious, not like Elena and Stefan.

"Didn't he know that you're dating Stefan?"

"Oh, he knows," Elena said heatedly and Jeremy thought she must have talked to Uncle John about it and the result hadn't been what she wanted.

"Is that why you're mad at him?"

"I've been mad at him since I was little and he made it clear that since I'm a girl there's no way that I'll ever truly be a Gilbert." Elena looked disgusted. "Even though he is my biological father and everything."

"That still freaks me out," Jeremy said. "He knew this whole time and he never wanted to get to know you." Not even after their parents had died was what Jeremy meant and Elena picked up on what he wasn't saying and nodded.

"Even then."

"I don't get it, you'd think that he'd want to hang out with you more if you're his daughter."

"I am not his daughter," Elena said firmly. "Mom and Dad are always going to be my parents no matter what Uncle John and Isobel got up to when they were younger. Think about it, would you want him as your dad?"

The question didn't take any thought. "No. He's kind of an ass."

"He tried to kill Stefan and Damon," Elena said. "I think 'ass' isn't a strong enough word."

"What did he do to Damon?" Jeremy asked. It was the first time he was hearing about exactly what had happened the night that Anna died, and his skin went cold at the thought of Damon getting hurt.

"He knocked him down with that compass and then he put Damon in the basement with the other vampires and was going to burn the building down. Bonnie held back the flames long enough for Stefan to get in and get Damon out but Uncle John just stood there and was going to let them burn."

"That asshole," Jeremy said. The next time he saw Uncle John he was going to punch him in the face and then when he got up, do it a couple more times.

"Yeah," Elena said. "So why were you going through Jonathon Gilbert's stuff? Were you looking for something?"

"It was kind of something for Damon," Jeremy said. "And me too, he said that if I wanted to ask him what it was like back then I had to be specific and find something I wanted to hear about."

Elena's mouth moved as if she wasn't sure if she thought that was funny or not. "He gave you homework?"

Jeremy flushed. "No?" He knew what it sounded like but it wasn't like that at all. It was just that he didn't want to explain that there might have been some expectation of sexual favors in exchange for all of this but Elena didn't seem to care about that part.

"Your vampire boyfriend gave you a homework assignment." Elena giggled and then covered her mouth when Jeremy glared at her. "Sorry, I know it's not like that and I don't want details, but seriously, don't tell Alaric that you're digging through Damon's history, I'm sure he'd get excited and give you all kinds of references."

That was enough to make Jeremy slump down in his chair. "I'm going to have to go and look in the Founders' Archives and I don't know my way around there, I might need his help." He wasn't looking forward to that conversation one bit.

Elena started laughing harder. When she was able to stop, she cleared her throat and pushed her hair out of her face in a clear attempt to look grownup and focused. "All right, but what exactly are you looking for?"

"I don't know yet. I wanted to know something about what it was like when he was you know-" Jeremy grimaced.

"Alive?"

Jeremy had been about to say something along the lines of 'not so sure of himself' but that wasn't exactly what he meant.

"Or something."

"There are these things called books," Elena said, and Jeremy groaned.

"I know what they are, I'm passing all my classes now."

"And we're all thrilled," Elena said. "I had to talk Jenna out of putting one of your tests on the fridge the other day."

"You didn't," Jeremy said, but he believed it. Jenna was thrilled every time she saw him pick up anything that had even a distant connection to school and he almost felt like sneaking around to study would be the less humiliating option.

"I did," Elena said heartlessly, and Jeremy set the muzzle down on the table and then thumped his head on it a couple of times.

"I could go back to failing," Jeremy said without much hope. "Lower everyone's expectations again."

Elena reached over and flicked him on the ear. "Don't you dare. This isn't for us, it's so you can get into a good school and move away from here." She was silent for a moment. "I think I was channeling Mom there."

Jeremy turned his head sideways so he could see her face and smiled. "It was nice, but don't make a habit of it, okay?"

Elena looked away and blinked hard and then turned back and her expression was businesslike and very much that of his in charge older sister. "So tell me what you’re going to ask Damon."

"Why do you care?" Jeremy asked.

"Well, I'm curious too," Elena said. "And if there are pictures of either of them I want you to make copies."

Blackmail was something that Jeremy could support and he nodded. "Apparently Stefan was into mullets."

Elena gaped at him. "Oh my god."

Jeremy grinned. "I promise, if I find anything I'll tell you, and you've got to talk to Stefan too, see if he's got anything to share."

Elena's grin was positively evil. "They're going to be so pissed."

"Yeah," Jeremy said and grinned back at her. "Isn't it great?"

~*~  
Jeremy did want to know if the muzzle he and Elena had found was really used on vampires and he packed it in his backpack along with the journal and then he headed out to see about finding more information.

The Founders' Archives were in Town Hall and Jeremy had been there a few times before with his parents. He hadn't paid much attention because it had been for official town business, and he'd been bored. Now he wished he'd noticed more and finally he went and asked somebody where the records were kept.

He was directed down into the basement by Mrs. Crown, who was very excited to see him 'taking an interest in his roots'. It took her awhile before she was satisfied that he'd been given enough of a tour and finally Jeremy found a small table, parked himself at it and thanked her until she gave him a knowing smile and went back upstairs.

The volumes were arranged neatly by family and then in chronological order and Mrs. Crown had given Jeremy a pair of gloves to wear while he was looking at the documents.

There weren't any journals by any of the Salvatores after 1864 and Jeremy wondered if Damon and Stefan had those things at the boardinghouse. He found the period of time when the strange deaths and animal attacks began to be noted and tried to read between the lines.

People were afraid, that much was obvious but what they were afraid of wasn't clear. Some of them were convinced that the Union Army was going to overrun the town and that the people who'd died were killed by wolves or by dogs that the Federals had set on townspeople in a scare tactic meant to break their spirit.

But others were convinced that there was more going on and they talked about the supernatural and influences of the Devil in people.

Jonathan Gilbert was one of the most vocal people on the matter as well as the Lockwoods and the entries Jeremy found were concerned with the best way to defend the town against any danger.

One thing Jeremy was fascinated by were the things people talked about that were completely ordinary. He was getting a sense of what life was like for people and by the time Mrs. Crown came downstairs to tell him that the building was closing, he even had an opinion on some of the matters that the town was debating, such as the construction of a new library. He felt like he was getting to know these people and it was hard not to get caught up in their fear as they were slowly being hunted by creatures they couldn't find.

It would have been a very frightening way to live, Jeremy admitted that much, even if he was unsettled when he found an entry by George Lockwood where he was admiring the muzzle that Jonathan Gilbert had made and added some of his own suggestions for devices that might help 'keep these foul creatures contained.' He included descriptions of the tools he thought were necessary and they looked like stuff out of a torture chamber.

Jeremy hoped that the vampires had been captured and then locked up before George Lockwood got a chance to try anything on them, and he wondered why the man seemed to hate the idea of anybody drinking blood so much. With the other Founders it was about them keeping Satan from their families, but the Lockwoods had a very personal vendetta against the demons and were the first ones to suggest that it might be vampires that were responsible for all the deaths.

"He knows more than he's saying," Jeremy said under his breath as he closed up the man's journal and carefully slid it back onto the shelf. The table he'd been sitting at was covered in papers and he stacked the copies he'd made into a neater pile and shoved them into his backpack. There was a lot of information to go through and he still didn't know what exactly he wanted to talk to Damon about.

~*~  
Jenna didn't say that she was glad he seemed to be taking on more schoolwork but she rattled around in the kitchen for almost fifteen minutes without actually doing anything until Jeremy turned around and raised an eyebrow at her.

"Are you lost?"

"No." Jenna smiled and walked out but Jeremy thought she was humming and he shook his head. Women were really strange and it seemed to run in his family.

When he reached the point in the journals where plans were coming together to stop the vampires there was a tension that Jeremy could almost see on the page. The writing looked sloppy and hurried, as if the writer had wanted to get the words down in case they weren't able to write again. Even so they never said that there were vampires among the townspeople. It was all very covert and Jonathan Gilbert mentioned a 'sickness' that overtook people. It made sense that they wouldn't have wanted to sound crazy to future generations, and instead of them fighting vampires, it sounded like there was a sort of plague in Mystic Falls and that the Founders were planning on finding the carriers and running them out of town.

That wasn't exactly a lie, but it was enough of a roundabout way of saying what was going on that they had to be editing themselves as soon as they realized what was going on.

Jeremy was sitting on the couch when Alaric came over to have dinner with Jenna and he stopped in the doorway to the living room and caught sight of the papers strewn everywhere.

"I don't remember assigning any projects," Alaric said and Jeremy looked up at him.

"No, this isn't for school."

Alaric reached down and picked up one of the pages from Honoria Fell's journal and Jeremy almost reached out and stopped him because he didn't want to have to explain to yet another person what he was doing but he kept quiet.

"This stuff is from the Founders' Archives," Alaric said and gave Jeremy a sharp look. "What are you up to?"

"It's something I've got going with Damon."

"Like what?" Alaric came around the couch and cleared a spot for himself. "I mean, not that I want to know what you're doing with Damon, because that's your thing, but this is my area of expertise and if I knew what you were looking for I might be able to help." Alaric shrugged. "It can't hurt to have an advantage, right?"

"He's already got one, he lived through all of this," Jeremy said and waved a hand at the mess surrounding him.

"Yeah, but the thing is, you can't let on that he's ahead," Alaric said. "It makes him act like even more of an absolute pain in the ass than he normally does."

In spite of himself, Jeremy blushed. "Yeah, I know." Boy did he know that. "So he talks to you about stuff like this?"

"Mostly we go out and kill things together," Alaric said. "It's a good way to relax, and that way I know that he's not out murdering people every night."

"Does he know that's why you're doing it?" Damon wouldn't like the idea of being babysat and if he found out, Jeremy knew it would be a huge deal.

"It's not like that," Alaric said and sighed as he leaned back into the couch. "I know it sounds like I'm trying to reform him, but I'm not that naive. I know that's not going to happen."

"Stefan and Elena think he's doing a lot better."

"Yeah, they would," Alaric said and looked uneasy. "I'm not going to tell you to steer clear of him because it's not my place and besides, I think it's a bit late for that." He motioned at Jeremy. "Your shirt slipped."

Jeremy knew that he had bruises all over and one of them had to be showing but he didn't reach up to hide it. "Yeah, the horse has left the barn."

Alaric smiled. "For me too."

"So if you're not going to tell me to get away from Damon, what did you want to say to me?" Jeremy liked Alaric. He was funny, a pretty smart guy and he didn't back down, not from people like Mayor Lockwood or even Damon who could be scarier than anything Jeremy had ever seen and that was with him only getting hints of what Damon was capable of.

"Is it working for you?" Alaric asked and he was very neatly not asking what exactly Jeremy and Damon were doing, although the bruise might have given him some idea.

Jeremy appreciated the consideration. "Yeah, mostly. It's hard to know what the right thing to do is." On top of that, this was only the third relationship Jeremy had been in, the first one with a guy, and if he counted everything that he had gone through with Vicki, the third with a vampire.

"With Damon?"

"With all of it," Jeremy said. "I think that I might have a thing for vampires," he blurted out, and Alaric let out a short laugh.

"I know what you mean."

"You do?"

"That's how I met Damon," Alaric said. "My ex wife, she went missing after a vampire bit her."

"Was it Damon?"

Alaric nodded and his expression was dark and pained as if something was struggling to get out and he wasn't going to let it. Then it was gone and he looked tired and resigned. "I thought I would come here and get revenge for what he did, but it turns out that he's pretty good about giving people what they want when he's not being an impulsive jerk."

That sounded like Alaric didn't mind what had happened which was hard for Jeremy to believe. "You don't want to get back at him?" Reading the Founders' journals had given him a view into the minds of people who were willing to lie in order to protect themselves but who also put the rest of the town at risk because they didn't explain what was going on or couldn't find another way to deal with the vampires.

"Not anymore," Alaric said. "He's not a bad guy, Jeremy, and I don't need to tell you that." His look was way too knowing for Jeremy's liking. "But the thing is, you can't ever forget that vampires aren't human. They just aren't. So don't expect them to act like people when they're something else."

"How do you expect them to behave?" Jeremy asked.

"Like predators," Alaric said. "Think of Mystic Falls as a nature preserve and we're getting friendly with the wildlife."

Jeremy laughed. "Don't let any of them hear you say that."

"Oh, Damon knows what I think of him," Alaric said. "But back to what you're doing. What have you found out?"

"Mostly that the Founders were a bunch of liars," Jeremy said. "And that most of this town's history is open to interpretation."

"The winners write the history books," Alaric said. "It's hard to tell your side when you've been run out of town."

"Or killed," Jeremy said. He had read a very brief entry on the trial of a witch and there had been a small notation about her being 'cleansed by fire.' That hadn't taken much effort to work out and Jeremy had felt sick.

"Exactly," Alaric said and he sounded like he did when he was in front of Jeremy and his classmates.

"I just want to know something about him," Jeremy said. "He says things and then he won't tell me anything else."

"Give me an example," Alaric said.

"He got wounded during the war," Jeremy said. "He told Tyler that much and Stefan said it was true."

Alaric looked interested. "Did he say where?"

Jeremy told him what little Damon had shared and Alaric sat forward and began sorting through the papers on the table.

"Stuff like that, war news is probably not going to be in personal journals unless it's from a family member. You might find lists of wounded in the newspapers, there were casualty lists printed all the time."

"I haven't gotten to see any of those yet," Jeremy said. "I got caught up in reading all the Founders' journals. They were pieces of work."

"In the essay you wrote for me you said there could be vampires in Mystic Falls based on the journal of a single person so you can draw conclusions based on limited sources, which is good, but you have to incorporate multiple accounts in order to get a complete picture so tell me what you've found out."

One of the bites on his shoulder itched and Jeremy scratched it absently. "It sounds like the Founders went from being freaked out that so many people were dying to vampires really fast."

"In that day there was a strong belief in tangible evil," Alaric said. "A person could be taken over by spirits and they had to be purified."

"Why didn't they try to do more to help the vampires? Or anybody that got bitten by them?" Jeremy asked. "I'm not done looking through all of this but it sounds like once they thought somebody was a vampire, that was it. And if someone was close to a suspected vampire, then they would condemn them too."

"Historically that happens a lot," Alaric said.

Jeremy had paid attention more in class recently and he knew Alaric was right but it left a bad taste in his mouth. "It's just- I know that some of the vampires were killing people and that's not right, but I don't think all of them could have been, otherwise the town would have been wiped out." The Founders had felt they were being attacked and struck back at anybody they thought was different and that was exactly what they had done only a month or two ago and it had gotten Anna killed.

Alaric looked thoughtful. "That's something you'd have to ask Damon, I don't think that any of the vampires kept journals or if they did, none of them have survived."

"Do you think Stefan has a journal?"

"Let me know," Alaric said as Jenna stepped into the room and cleared her throat. "And tell me if you need help with finding sources, I have a lot of stuff that I'd be happy to lend you."

"And I'll let you know if I found out anything interesting," Jeremy said.

"Be sure you do," Alaric said. "I'd love to get his point of view on a few things."

Jeremy stuck a hand over the back of the couch and waved his agreement and then returned to poring over the pages. He still hadn't found any pictures of the Salvatore family and put that on his list of things to ask Damon about.

He wasn't trying to fix Damon the way Jenna might if she knew just what he was. She was doing her thesis on something psychological and Jeremy had no idea what it was because he hadn't been interested when she talked about it, but she would have been eager to analyze somebody knew. That was, unless she decided that Damon was just too dangerous to be around her niece and nephew and tried to bar him from seeing them. That would have been an extremely bad idea for so many reasons.

~*~  
"Do you have a fetish I should know about?" Damon asked and Jeremy didn't know how to answer that.

"What's so weird about wanting to see a picture of you?"

"I don't have photo albums lying around."

"Does Stefan?"

"He might," Damon said.

"In his room?"

"He has a lot of things in there," Damon said.

"You can be photographed, right? I mean, you appear on film?"

"I've never had a problem with it," Damon said. "It's just not a good idea, those things tend to stick around and people start asking questions about why you haven't aged."

"I can imagine it would get awkward."

"But that's not why Stefan hides all the pictures of himself he has."

"What about you?"

"Why would I need to keep any of that?"

"Don’t you want a picture or two of your family?"

"Stefan is the only member of my family I wanted to spend much time around."

"You didn't get along with your dad."

"I've said that before."

"Yeah, but your mom couldn't have been that bad."

Damon smiled at Jeremy and he scrambled up. That expression never meant anything good and he was too sore to want to be in trouble so soon.

Jeremy dropped his eyes. “Sorry.”

Neither of them brought it up again and Jeremy decided that he'd go to the other Salvatore to get more information.

~*~

"It's not as though photographs were widely done," Stefan said when Jeremy mustered up the courage to ask him if he had a secret stash of photos hidden somewhere in the boardinghouse. "It was just starting to become popular when we were growing up."

"I've seen a lot of photographs of soldiers," Jeremy said. "Did Damon get one taken?"

Stefan looked thoughtful. "Yes, and both of us had one done with Katherine."

Jeremy's eyes widened. "Not with your dad?"

"Damon and Father could barely stand to be in the same room with one another," Stefan said. "Having a photograph taken would have been more than either of them could take." For Stefan that was a harsh comment on their father and Jeremy reflected that when pressed Damon said similar things, he was just a lot less nice about it.

"Yeah, Damon told me that they didn't get along."

"That is putting it diplomatically," Stefan said. "Let's go and see where I put that box of things."

~*~

There was antique furniture all over the boardinghouse and some of it might even have been as old as the Salvatores. The armoire that Stefan opened to reveal shelves stacked with shirts and pants folded neatly alongside several aged wooden boxes was one of those impressive pieces of furniture that Jeremy thought the house must have been built around because he couldn't imagine how anybody had moved it up the stairs to the second floor without hurting themselves badly.

"This was a gift from my father," Stefan said. He ran his fingers over the worn surface of the box and let his fingertips catch on the pitting of the wood around the hinges. "It was originally my mother's."

"It's really nice," Jeremy said and when Stefan held the box out he took it carefully and opened it.

There was a smell like an attic from inside the box, flowers or something, and it got stronger as Jeremy reached inside and took out the stack of things inside.

There were several photographs and Jeremy sorted through them eagerly. He put them side by side on Stefan's desk and they looked them over together.

There weren't any of Stefan's mother or father but more than a few of Stefan at various points in time and then Jeremy found the one that Stefan had told him about.

The woman seated in the photograph looked like his sister, but there was something about her smile that was a little cruel. It looked like she was about to start laughing and the joke was on everyone else.

Stefan was seated beside her on the bench and one of his hands rested next to him and Katherine's right hand was resting on his hand.

Jeremy glanced at Stefan. "She would have kissed one of us but that would have caused a scandal." He smiled a little bit. "Not that we weren't almost causing a scandal as it was being there together like that."

"She must have hated pretending to be a good girl," Jeremy said.

"It was only in public," Stefan said. "Out of sight there wasn't any doubt who was in charge."

Jeremy’s eyes moved to the figure standing behind Stefan and Katherine. While they both were smiling, if only slightly, Damon looked perfectly serious. "Was Damon mad at you guys or something?"

"We dragged him in to have a photograph taken and then we made him sit for one with his uniform on." Stefan shrugged. "He thought we were making a huge fuss."

"He was pissed off?"

"Have you seen Damon when he's truly angry?" Stefan asked.

"Just once," Jeremy said. "He snapped my neck so I don't remember much of it."

That made Stefan wince. "He was a little annoyed here." Stefan stared at the photograph. "But we were happy here, or thought we were."

The way the three of them were positioned made Jeremy think of something. "Was Katherine planning on marrying one of you?"

"It was suitable for her to be courted by one of us, so it might have been part of her plans." Stefan said. "She hadn't made her choice public, though. Both of us took her around town but Damon spent more time with her and Pearl than I did."

"Anna's mom?"

Stefan nodded. "They trusted him to keep their secrets."

"But not you?"

"She had to compel me to act a certain way," Stefan said. "I think it got a little tedious."

"I can see that." Jeremy stared at the photograph a little longer and tried to figure out what about it made him think that there was more going on. It was something in the way Damon's hand rested on Stefan's shoulder, right between him and Katherine as if it could slide off Stefan and onto Katherine's shoulder at any second. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Stefan looking at the picture too and Jeremy couldn't read his expression.

Jeremy decided that he would show it to Damon and see if he'd explain what was going on and set that picture aside. The next photograph was of Damon in his uniform."

"He looks very-" Jeremy tried to come up with a word and Stefan laughed softly.

"Like he's about to jump out of his skin?"

"Yeah, that."

"He hates staying still," Stefan said. "I had to bribe him with some of Cook's apple turnovers just so he'd sit for the photographer."

All the pictures Jeremy had seen of soldiers about to head off to war had a kind of fatalistic optimism. Most of them looked like they were preparing to go off on some adventure and that they had no idea of what was going to happen to them. There weren't as many pictures of soldiers after the war, but those weren't as happy.

"That's not the only photograph of him," Stefan said. He slid one out from the bottom of the stack and offered it to Jeremy. "Here."

"When was this taken?"

"Just before the turn of the century," Stefan said.

Damon was sitting on a couch and staring off into the distance. It looked like he'd paused right before tearing somebody to pieces, with words or his teeth, Jeremy couldn’t tell, the expression was almost identical and the angle of the picture made it seem like he was looking up at Damon from a slightly lower angle.

"Did he know you were taking pictures?"

"It wasn't me, there was a friend there and he insisted I take the picture," Stefan said.

"One of your friends?"

"Damon doesn't have friends," Stefan said.

"Then what am I?"

"I'd say lover, if that's not too old fashioned of a word," Stefan said and when Jeremy grimaced, continued. "Boyfriend, but you're not a friend in the way that most people mean it."

"Is that a good thing or not?"

"It depends," Stefan said. "Sometimes these things work out, but I never know."

"What does it depend on?" Jeremy asked.

"Mostly you. If you can stand to be around Damon long enough to get used to each other, then it's probably going to be fine."

"When you say probably-"

"This is Damon, you know how fast his mood changes."

Jeremy remembered the way he had felt when Damon put his hands on his throat and twisted his head sharply and then the darkness that had blacked out his vision until he’d started breathing again.

"Yeah, he's kind of moody."

"You two have that in common," Stefan said and he didn't sound like he was going to laugh about it. "I know that what you two are doing is fun, Jeremy, but I hope you can remember that you don't have to let him take over."

"I asked him for this," Jeremy said and let his gaze move over the two photographs of Damon and then the one of the three of them. Damon's face hadn't aged, it wouldn't, but his eyes were different. That was where Jeremy looked for a clue about his mood and that much hadn't changed.

"You said that Damon was wounded at Petersburg."

"Yes, he arrived home before we got the letter he sent us," Stefan said.

"Do you have it? Or any of the letters he sent?"

"They're around here," Stefan said. "I think you should ask Damon if he minds you reading those."

"He said I could look for questions to ask," Jeremy said. He knew that Stefan was right and Damon might mind that Jeremy was reading things that he'd written for his brother, but if Damon had a problem with it then they would sort it out and both of them would end up enjoying it.

"All right, but I warned you," Stefan said and moved to rummaged around under his bed. As Jeremy watched him he wondered if they kept a lot of things or if they just dumped their belongings and then moved on.

"How much have you kept?"

"Of my stuff?" Stefan lifted the comforter out of the way and tugged out a large trunk and opened it on the floor. He didn't look up as he shifted the contents from side to side and then handed Jeremy a thick, yellowed stack of papers. "It depends, I keep things that mean something to me."

"So clothes aren't something you hang onto."

"Trends come and go quickly," Stefan said.

"Elena wanted to know if you had any pictures of yourself," Jeremy said and that prompted a smile.

"She wants to see what I looked like in the fifties."

Jeremy waited expectantly.

"I looked the same, but with a bad haircut."

"It wouldn't be the first time that's happened to somebody," Jeremy said. One thing he wasn't proud of aside from the drugs and partying he'd done was the fact that he'd stopped caring what he looked like. He'd never tried to fit in with what other people wanted from him, but showering shouldn't have been a battle between himself and Jenna.

"So that's a no," Stefan said. "I don't know where any of those pictures are." His eyes were a little too wide for him to be telling the truth and Jeremy grinned.

"I'll check and see what I can find."

"I'd ask you not to, but I have a feeling it won't help," Stefan said.

"You'd be right," Jeremy said and Stefan glanced toward the door. "Is Damon home?"

"Yes." Stefan nodded at the letters Jeremy was holding. "I don't know if you want to hide those, but just don't let him put them away somewhere when you're done."

"I won't," Jeremy said. "Thanks."

Stefan nodded at him and Jeremy went to Damon's room to wait for him and Stefan headed downstairs.

~*~

Jeremy flopped down on Stefan's bed and put the photographs down and then began untying the ribbon holding the letters together. He smoothed the top one out carefully and squinted for a second as he adjusted to the flowing handwriting.

"Stefan got you the goods," Damon said as he came in, and Jeremy glanced up.

"You didn't tell me I couldn't use every resource I could find." He returned to reading the letter. "I did get a lot of stuff from the Founders' Archives."

"That's industrious of you," Damon said and was abruptly sitting on the bed next to Jeremy.

Jeremy didn't startle easily and by now he was used to the way Damon would move like a human some of the time and then inhumanly fast when he felt like it. "Are you trying to get me to be a historian or something?"

Damon scoffed and Jeremy heard two thumps as his boots hit the floor and then Jeremy rolled over on top of Jeremy and tucked his chin over Jeremy's shoulder so he could read along.

This didn't bother Jeremy and they lay like that until Damon got bored and rolled off toward the head of the bed and grabbed a pillow.

"Tell me when you're done," Damon said and Jeremy looked up just long enough to see that Damon was holding a book and opened it to where a bookmark had been put.

"Yeah," Jeremy said. He was engrossed in the letter and only half heard what Damon had said.

"Alaric will be thrilled with your new interest in school," Damon said and that got Jeremy's attention.

"I think he's going to try and stick me in the honors program next semester."

"Oh?"

"He caught me with the stuff I copied from the Founders' journals," Jeremy said. "He seemed really happy about it."

"Historians are a weird bunch," Damon said and shrugged as he went back to his book.

They lay like that for what seemed like not very long, but when Damon sat up and put a hand on Jeremy's back, Jeremy looked around and saw that the sun had moved all the way across the room.

"That's enough for now," Damon said. "You need to get out of here. Jenna will be wondering where you've wandered off to."

"She's out with Alaric," Jeremy said and corrected himself. "Or staying in with Alaric, and I don't want to walk in on them." Elena had told him that he might not want to have any ice cream for a while and when she explained the reason Jeremy had yelled at her for giving him the mental image of their aunt and history teacher having sex. He was still feeling a little fragile about that.

"I can think of worse things to walk in on," Damon said.

"And you've done most of them," Jeremy said but sat up when Damon tapped him on the shoulder in a clear signal to move. "Do I have to go now?"

"You can stay," Damon said. "But my brother and Elena are having a night in tonight and they're right down the hall." He paused and seemed to be listening to something that Jeremy couldn't hear.

"Are they-" Jeremy couldn't bring himself to ask and Damon smirked.

"Not yet, but your sister is loud."

"You need to never tell me that again," Jeremy said. "Now I feel dirty."

"It's not a big deal," Damon said. "The walls here are thick, you won't hear anything."

"Thank god," Jeremy said and sat up. He had a crick in his neck and the rest of his body was stiff too but he had gotten through almost ten of the letters. They were all long, as if Damon had been trying to get everything down on paper and then sending it to Stefan so he wouldn't have to think about it anymore.

"Are you bored yet?"

Damon was watching him and Jeremy didn't know what he was looking for, but shook his head. "No, this is really interesting."

"You're reading the stuff from West Point," Damon said when he glanced at the date on one of the letters.

"Yeah."

"If that's your idea of interesting then you're going to be overwhelmed any minute," Damon said.

"Stefan said you wrote him a letter after you were wounded. Where is it?"

"In that stack. I would assume, knowing Stefan that those are in order and maybe even sorted by my mood," Damon said flippantly. When Jeremy glared at him, he smiled. "You want to read that stuff, you need to put in the effort."

"You're such a bastard sometimes."

"I'm a lot of things, but that's not one of them," Damon said. "My parents were married. Good society wouldn't have allowed anything else."

Damon's tone was light but Jeremy hadn't been able to get much out of him on the subject of his mother and from what little Stefan had said there seemed to have been some serious issues between Damon and his father on a lot of things including his mother.

"I miss my mom too," Jeremy said. It didn't seem like she had been dead that long and there were days when Jeremy half expected Jenna to tell him that there had been a mistake and that his mom and dad would be home soon.

"I told you I could take away your pain," Damon said. "The offer still stands."

"Making me forget that I miss them isn't going to help," Jeremy said. "Besides, don't you like it when I'm in pain?"

"I like it when I'm the one that hurts you," Damon said and he sounded the way he did when he had Jeremy naked underneath him and Jeremy's blood on his mouth.

"Me too," Jeremy said quietly. Even saying it out loud felt like sharing a secret, even if Damon knew how much Jeremy liked what they did.

"That doesn't mean you should go looking for trouble," Damon said.

"You told me I could ask you questions," Jeremy said. It wasn't like Damon was going to volunteer information unless it was sure to cause people heartburn.

"Just don't be surprised if you find out things that you don't like," Damon said.

"It's way too late for that talk," Jeremy said. "That was back when I found out my girlfriend was a vampire and she died for it."

"Vicki died because she had no idea of how to control herself," Damon said.

"Did you give her a chance?" Jeremy asked.

Damon turned his head to look at him and Jeremy felt like he'd been pinned in place by his eyes but he tried to breathe normally and kept his eyes just off center of Damon's. He wasn't trying to challenge him but he wanted to know the answer.

"Is this some repressed blame coming out or guilt for not noticing what was going on with her sooner?" Damon asked. "Either way it's done with and you need to move on."

"Caring about other people is something you really should work on," Jeremy said.

"That's because I'm not a person," Damon said. "Vampires don't care."

Jeremy didn't think that Damon was doing as good a job of fooling people on that one, but he kept that to himself. "Is that hard to keep track of? Not having any feelings? How do you separate things?"

Damon lifted one shoulder. "You just know how to shut things like that off."

"But is it like you just tell yourself not to care and ignore what's going on?"

"It's not like that," Damon said impatiently. "Just think of something that's bothered you and then before it makes you upset, move on."

"It’s that simple?"

"Vampires aren't supposed to be caught up in the morality that holds you humans back," Damon said. His mouth flattened and he looked annoyed. "Although I've heard otherwise."

"Does that work forever?" Jeremy asked. Even magic buttons wore out and it would be a problem if Damon suddenly started caring about what he was doing to people at the wrong moment.

"What does?" Damon asked, which wasn't an answer, but he lifted an arm and Jeremy knew that was a signal that he needed to change the subject.

“I guess I can take a break now.”

"Tell me what you've found out."

"The Founders liked to talk a lot," Jeremy said as he tucked himself under Damon's arm and rested his head on Damon's chest. He couldn't hear Damon's heart beating and that was another thing that he was still getting used to.

"Hey, why don't you have a heartbeat right now? I've heard it before." It didn't beat as fast as Jeremy's but he'd heard it all the same.

"I haven't fed in awhile," Damon said. "Our bodies work differently than yours when we haven't eaten enough."

With ought speaking, Jeremy moved an arm upward into range of Damon's mouth. He got a kiss on his wrist and Damon moved it back down.

"Not right now, you're a little low on iron right now."

"How can you tell?"

"You're coming down with a cold," Damon said. "You don't need to have blood loss on top of that."

"Your blood heals injuries. You could just give me some of it after." To Jeremy it sounded like a great idea and then he wouldn't get sick at all.

"I am not the supernatural equivalent of vitamin c," Damon said. "Vampire blood doesn't fix everything."

"Then compel me not to get sick," Jeremy said stubbornly. He sounded whinier than he wanted to, but if he was sick then Jenna could invoke her powers as his aunt and make him stay home.

"Sorry, kid it doesn't work that way." Damon rested a hand on Jeremy's head. "You were telling me what you'd turned up."

"It's a lot of stuff," Jeremy said. He wasn't sure where he wanted to start or if his goal was to get Damon talking or prod him until he filled in the blanks Jeremy wasn't able to make sense of.

"I'm sure it is," Damon said and sounded like he was nodding off.

"Your father kept a journal, right?"

"He loved going on about stuff, no reason not to record that for future generations," Damon said.

Jeremy poked him. "Damon."

"It's on the table," Damon said and pointed in the direction of the bedside table.

Jeremy crawled over Damon and found a small leather journal sitting on the second shelf. When he returned to where he'd been curled up, he caught sight of Damon looking at him funny. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, you're really into this."

"I want to know about you," Jeremy said.

"I'm right here."

"I know, but like you said, you're pretty old and I haven't had the best luck getting you to share so I want to have a little bit of perspective. And this way you can bitch about dead people who didn't like you if you want."

"As if I need a reason," Damon said but let Jeremy read the journal in peace.

~*~

Jeremy fell asleep like that and when he woke up again he took one breath, felt his breath catch in his throat and started coughing. It turned out that vampires weren't too bad at diagnosing illness. Jeremy wanted to throw something. He'd only now gotten into the right mindset for working out what he was looking for and now he'd have to go home and curl up alone in his bed.

"You're awake," Damon said and his voice was way too loud and cheerful for the headache that suddenly made itself known.

"Ow, quiet is good," Jeremy said and peered up at Damon as he leaned over him with a mug in one hand.

Damon felt Jeremy's forehead. "How are you feeling?"

"Sick." Jeremy tilted his head back hopefully. "Make it better?"

"Sit up," Damon said and when Jeremy moved he shoved a couple pillows behind his back.

"Thanks." Jeremy eyed the mug. "Is that coffee?"

"With a kick," Damon said.

"Beer?"

"Heathen," Damon said. "We need to do something about educating your palate."

"Gimmie," Jeremy said and Damon shook his head.

"Blood isn't good for what ails you, but Stefan's making soup and I think he's been looking for a reason to talk to you again."

"Why?" Jeremy asked.

"He wants to make sure I haven’t got your body stashed under the bed," Damon said and Jeremy would have rolled his eyes but his head hurt too much.

"Can he bring some Tylenol when he does that?"

"Sure," Damon said and took another sip from his mug.

"Are you going somewhere?" Jeremy asked as he noticed that Damon had his jacket on.

"I've got to see Liz about some Council business but I'll be back in awhile." He rubbed Jeremy's leg. "I called Jenna and she knows you're over here. Don't get sicker otherwise my status as a responsible adult is going to be called into question."

"Did you ever have it?" Jeremy asked and tried to smile. "I'll be fine. I just want to sleep for a week."

Damon looked at him evaluating whether he was telling the truth or not and then squeezed Jeremy's leg one more time before he walked out.

Stefan brushed past him in the doorway and then came in with a mug that he offered to Jeremy. "Here, I made you some soup."

"Chicken noodle?" Jeremy asked and grinned at the thought of a vampire making him chicken noodle soup.

"Of course," Stefan said and smiled conspiratorially at him.

Jeremy took a small sip and swallowed carefully. The soup was hot enough that it hurt a little on the way down but it didn't burn his tongue.” Thanks." He settled back into the pillows and focused on breathing. It felt like this had come on all of a sudden and now that he had noticed one thing, the rest of his body was complaining too.

"How do you feel?" Stefan asked as he sat down on the corner of the bed.

"Like I've got a cold," Jeremy said. "I'm going to be a pain to be around pretty soon."

"You can't be as bad as Damon was when he got sick," Stefan said.

"How's that?"

"He would never admit to it and he'd end up half out of his mind with fever and collapse somewhere." Stefan grimaced. "Then I had to practically tie him to the bed because he refused to sit still and get better."

"Sounds like he hasn't changed much," Jeremy said.

"I usually got stuck taking care of him," Stefan said. "I wanted to be a doctor so I thought it would be good experience dealing with difficult patients."

"You did, really?"

"Really and truly," Stefan said. "My father was considering sending me to medical school just before the war started."

"What happened to change your mind?"

Stefan looked down at his hands and smiled ruefully. "Blood made me sick."

Jeremy let out a bark of laughter and immediately started coughing. "You're joking."

"No, I would get sick and faint." Stefan snorted. "Damon never let me live it down either."

"I bet," Jeremy said and shivered. He put the mug down with a shaking hand and tugged the blankets up to his chin. "Sorry I'm not going to be good company, I just want to sleep until I can think straight."

"That's fine," Stefan said. "Did you want me to leave?"

Jeremy shook his head. "No, you can stay." He didn't want to sound like he couldn't handle himself but he'd rather have had Damon around especially when he wasn't feeling good. "Do you know if Damon’s going to be back soon?"

"He said he and Liz were plotting to overthrow Carol Lockwood, so I think he won't be too long," Stefan said. "They have to plan some event and then they were going to talk about putting in more security in case vampires show up."

"Too late," Jeremy said and wriggled down in the bed until his head was mostly covered. "I'm going to go to sleep now."

"You do that," Stefan said and Jeremy closed his eyes.

~*~

"You've got Stefan channeling his thwarted medical ambitions," Damon said very close to Jeremy's ear and he opened his eyes to see Damon grinning at him and over his shoulder Stefan folded his arms over his chest and looked like he wanted to hit Damon with something but knew it wouldn't do any good.

"Are you going to be all right, Jeremy?" Stefan asked.

"I'll be fine," Jeremy said and winced when talking hurt his throat. He sounded awful and just those couple of words made him start coughing so hard he was bent over with it.

"I think that's not up to you," Stefan said and hurried over.

"He's got a fever," Stefan said and Damon glared at him.

"I am able to figure that much out, Stefan, you weren't a perfect patient either." His attention shifted to Jeremy, who tried to smile.

"It's not a cold."

"Apparently not." Damon slid an arm under Jeremy's shoulders and levered him upright and then swung him up into his arms without even a hint of strain.

"What are you doing?"

"You've sweated through the sheets," Damon said. "I'm going to run a bath and while you’re soaking, I'll change the sheets."

"I'll get you the linens," Stefan said and Damon didn't acknowledge him.

"I'm going to be fine," Jeremy said but Damon wouldn't put him down and carried him into the bathroom where there was a huge free standing tub.

"You don't get to decide that," Damon said and held Jeremy up while he turned on the faucet. When the temperature was right, he put Jeremy in, in spite of Jeremy's yelling.

"Damon, I'm sick, I don't want to get wet."

"Too damn bad," Damon said. "You're lucky your fever hasn't gotten high enough for me to put you in an ice bath, but I'd do it if I thought it would shut you up."

Jeremy glared at him. "You really suck as a nurse."

"Get over it," Damon said and splashed Jeremy in the face with warm water. "You sound congested, this will clear your lungs up so you don't get even sicker."

Jeremy knew that what he was saying made sense, but he'd been warm and dry in Damon's bed and was angry that he'd been moved. After a few minutes had passed he started to relax a little and the steam made it easier to breathe.

Damon kept the water hot and when he was satisfied that Jeremy had soaked himself enough, he scooped him out of the tub without warning and wrapped him in a large towel.

Flailing didn't do much good, but Jeremy thought Damon deserved to get hit in the face once or twice on general principle and didn't feel bad when Damon dried him off quickly and then hauled him back into the bedroom.

Stefan really had changed the sheets and even pulled down the blankets so that Damon was able to set Jeremy down and then covered him up before he had a chance to feel the cold.

Damon kicked off his boots and slid in beside Jeremy and even though he was still a little annoyed, Jeremy curled toward him automatically.

"You're warm."

"I've eaten," Damon said and frowned. "How do you feel?"

"A little better," Jeremy said. "Stefan made me soup."

"He would have been a good doctor," Damon said. "So long as patients didn't mind him fainting if they had a paper cut."

"I wasn't that bad," Stefan said and Jeremy raised his head enough to see him standing at the door.

"You were," Damon said. "Remember when you fell out of that tree and broke your arm?"

"I fractured it," Stefan said shortly. "You didn't take it that well either."

"All you had to do was get the bone set, I had to explain to Father what you'd been doing trying to get to the top of the Lockwoods’ barn."

"There was an owl in the rafters," Stefan said. "I thought I could climb onto the roof and see its nest."

"My brother," Damon said and he sounded exasperated but fond too.

"Did you need anything else, Jeremy?" Stefan asked and he was being so pointed about ignoring Damon that he might as well have shouted it.

"No, I'm good," Jeremy said and smiled. Some of the time he didn't know if he liked Stefan or not, but he wasn't that bad of a guy and he'd made Jeremy soup. "Thanks."

"You realize that Elena is going to yell at both of us for this," Damon said.

"You more than me," Jeremy said smugly and coughed a little bit. "I'm an invalid."

"You have a cold," Damon said. "It's not the Spanish Flu."

"But you're supposed to look out for me," Jeremy said. "That means-" he yawned "you're going to get yelled at."

Damon sighed. "Get some sleep now, I'll hold her off."

"Mmm," Jeremy said and was asleep almost as soon as he closed his eyes.

~*~

Elena did call Damon and from what Jeremy could hear from Damon's side of the conversation, she thought that he had dumped Jeremy in a frozen lake and then gotten Bonnie so mad that she'd conjured a blizzard and Jeremy had been caught in the middle of it. When Damon hung up the phone he stared at it as if he was thinking about snapping it in two but restrained himself and stuck it on the table.

"That girl has a set of lungs on her."

"How upset was she?" Jeremy asked as he stretched carefully. His throat didn't hurt as much but his entire body was aching and he didn't want to move unless he absolutely had to. Unfortunately he had to go to the bathroom and he wasn't sure he could manage it on his own.

"You could hear her," Damon said. "Take a guess."

"I'll distract her," Jeremy said and couldn't help squirming.

Damon noticed. "What's wrong?"

"I need to go to the bathroom," Jeremy said and tried to roll out of bed.

"Yeah, because that will go well," Damon said and waited until Jeremy had stood up for a second and then as his legs folded and he was headed toward the floor, Damon caught him. He didn't carry Jeremy but put his arm around Jeremy's waist and basically took all his weight and let him pretend that he was actually walking on his own.

"I can do this on my own," Jeremy said when they were in the bathroom but Damon didn't leave.

"Go ahead, I'd rather you didn't fall and crack your head open."

Jeremy didn’t move.

"I've seen it," Damon said. "Get to it or I'll put you back in bed."

Jeremy fumbled to hurry and do his business and didn't look at Damon again until he had washed his hands and dried them.

"Let's go," Damon said and guided him back to bed. He held the covers up so Jeremy could crawl in and let himself be tugged in too.

"Sorry I got sick," Jeremy said. He'd been excited about he prospect of finding out more about Damon and maybe being able to figure out some way to deal with supernatural stuff before it showed up and tried to kill all of them. The Founders couldn't have been the only people to try and fight off a bunch of vampires and now that Jeremy was interested he could look for more information on these things.

"Don't worry about it," Damon said.

"That's got to be one good thing about being a vampire."

"I haven't had a cold in over a century."

"And vampires can't get sick at all?"

"We live off blood, what's so weird about us being impervious to disease?" Damon asked.

It made a certain amount of sense. "Not even once?"

"Nope."

Jeremy thought about how much he saw Damon at the Mystic Grill's bar. "Do you get hungover?"

"It takes a lot," Damon said. "That doesn't mean I haven't tried my hardest."

"Because you're an overachiever," Jeremy said and pressed harder into Damon's side. "Do I have to go home soon?"

“Your sister is going to be worried about you.”

“I know she is.” They were having a hard enough time as it was that Jeremy didn’t want to be the cause of more problems but he wanted Elena to get used to the idea that he didn’t need to be taken care of the way Elena used to. Getting sick while he was over at Damon’s house didn’t help him much but he was going to make the most of it.

“Jeremy,” Damon said sharply, and Jeremy groaned but looked up at Damon.

“I should go, right?”

“I’ll take you home,” Damon said. “Remember, you don’t live here.”

“I could,” Jeremy said. He hadn't been thinking about moving in, but when Damon brought it up he had to put it out there.

“Jeremy, how old are you?”

Jeremy lifted his chin and tried to stare Damon down. It didn't happen but he made a good effort. “Old enough.”

Damon laughed. “That depends on what you're doing. This-” he waved a hand to indicate them and this entire situation “is not something that has an age guideline, but no matter what you want, you're still not in charge and you need to remember that there are other people who are going to keep an eye on you even if you don't want them to.”

What Damon was saying made sense and Jeremy knew it, but if he was going to pick who bossed him around, Damon was the only name on that list that he actually liked listening to most of the time.

“It sucks.”

"Somehow you're going to pull through."

Jeremy didn't think it was worth firing back and tried to sit up without looking like he was trying to play up how badly he still felt. When Damon put a hand in the center of his back, Jeremy leaned into it only a little and when Damon pressed harder, Jeremy didn't put all his weight on him.

"I'm sixteen," Jeremy said and he knew what Damon was going to say and he didn't want to hear it. "So what?"

"Unless you're going to run away from home you have to at least pretend to listen to your aunt," Damon said.

"Right, and you did that when you were my age."

"This isn't about me," Damon said. "The point is that you need to get home before Jenna calls Liz Forbes and I have to explain what you're doing here."

Jeremy thought there were a lot of things that Damon could say to fool people into thinking he wasn't actually dangerous and this shouldn't have been hard at all. Unless he didn't want to keep Jeremy around more.

"You could compel them not to care about it."

"And that wouldn't suspicious," Damon said.

"I wouldn't mind."

Damon slid out of the bed and dragged the blankets with him. "That's enough, get moving."

"You know, even when you're not trying to punish me, I still don't have any fun,” Jeremy said he didn't hear a word from Damon, but he kept his head down and grabbed his shoes and shoved his feet into them.

Jeremy had only seen Damon driving a car around Mystic Falls and when he was bundled into the passenger seat of a powder blue Porsche, he raised an eyebrow at Damon.

"Why don't you ever use this?"

"I do when I need to," Damon said. "I'm not going to carry you over the threshold."

It would have gotten them way more attention than Jeremy would be able to avoid for probably at least a decade. "Carry my bag?"

Damon looked tolerantly amused and followed Jeremy up to the door. It opened before Jeremy could get his key in the lock and Elena looked from him to Damon.

"Is he okay? Stefan said he was really sick."

"It's just the flu," Jeremy said and caught Damon smirking at him.

"A minute ago you weren't sure if you'd be able to drag yourself out of the car, now it's nothing. Drama clearly runs in the family."

Both Elena and Jeremy narrowed their eyes at Damon. "Thanks for driving me home," Jeremy said and tried to take his bag from Damon.

"Get some rest," Damon said as he held the bag out of Jeremy's reach.

"Yeah, I know," Jeremy said and tried to grab his bag again but Damon grabbed Jeremy's face and made him look up.

"If you don't take care of yourself then other people have to do it for you."

The warning was unmistakable, even to Elena and she raised an eyebrow at both of them.

"I'll be good," Jeremy mumbled and Damon nodded.

"At least for a while." Damon glanced at Elena. "See you later."

"What was that?" Elena asked as she followed Jeremy upstairs.

"He's pissed that I got sick."

"Which is his way of caring," Elena said. "You know it's messed up."

"So am I," Jeremy said and smiled when Elena objected.

"I'm okay with it, Elena. I really am tired, and I'm going to sleep until I feel better or Jenna makes dinner."

"Take it easy on her," Elena said. She looked tired but not upset. "I think she's getting used to the idea of you and Damon but she's still dealing with it."

If Jenna knew what other things they were keeping from her she wouldn't have let either of them spend any time with Damon or Stefan and she might have tried to take them somewhere safe. "I will," Jeremy said.

Elena pushed Jeremy toward his bed and when he'd climbed in, leaned over him and stared hard at him.

It was kind of creepy and Jeremy told her that. “What do you want?”

“He isn't making you do anything you don't want to? Not even when you were sick?”

“Actually he was sort of sweet,” Jeremy said and Elena stared at him. “I mean, for Damon, I don't know if he can be sweet without wanting to go out and hurt somebody afterward, but he took care of me.”

“That's all I wanted to hear,” Elena said and looked at him hard. “I mean it, I don't want to know the details, but if he so much as looks at you funny, tell me and I'll straighten him out.”

Jeremy laughed. “Oh, let me watch.”

“He doesn't scare you at all, does he?” Elena asked.

“No, he does,” Jeremy said. “But you get used to it, I mean it's not like he's human.”

“He's a person.”

“Sure, but not like we're people,” Jeremy said and shrugged. “I don't expect the same things from him.” He couldn't get what Damon gave him from anybody human, at least not without both of them getting into something that could have gotten one of them hurt pretty badly.

It wasn't like Jeremy didn't see what Elena was worried about and he did know how to get himself into trouble, but this wasn't the same. Being flat on his back and looking as bad as he felt wasn't the best way to convince Elena of anything, but Jeremy thought they were making progress.

~*~

Jenna poked her head in to check on Jeremy and after she'd felt his forehead there was a lecture on knowing when to lie down and rest, but she grudgingly admitted that Stefan and Damon hadn't done all that bad a job of taking care of him.

"I'm going to tell Damon that if he sees you running yourself into the ground again that he needs to, I don't know, tie you down until you listen."

Jeremy looked away before Jenna could see his reaction to that and nodded. "I don't think he's going to let me get away with something like that again."

"I'm glad at least one of you knows how to be responsible."

Instead of saying something, Jeremy bit his tongue and tried to look as if he was going to do as he was told. It didn't fool Jenna, but she brought him toast and crackers and later forced him to get out of bed to take a shower.

~*~  
"I think part of it is just that I want to see you dress up," Jeremy said abruptly to Damon when they were sitting on the couch in the boarding house.

Damon had been sleeping, or plotting destruction of something that annoyed him. It was hard to tell when he wasn't making a sound and Jeremy's outburst got his attention.

"That could be arranged," Damon said. "There’s going to be a party at the Lockwoods' next week."

“So you’re going?” Jeremy asked. He didn’t know if Damon was inviting him, or sharing information.

“The Founding Families are expected to attend,” Damon said.

That wasn’t what Jeremy wanted to know. “Do we have to bring somebody along?”

Damon smiled. “Yes, that’s expected too.”

Jeremy tried to be casual about the way he was waiting for Damon to say something, but he didn’t pull it off very well.

“If you want something, you need to ask,” Damon said.

“May I go with you?”

“They won’t get it,” Damon said.

That wasn’t the point. “But we will,” Jeremy said and sat up. “I mean it, can we go together?”

“I’ll consider it,” Damon said, and tilted his head slightly.

Jeremy breathed out. That wasn’t a definite ‘yes,’ but it was close, and he could tell that Damon liked the idea of breaking rules in front of the Founding Families.

“How many more of these are we going to have to go to this year?” Jeremy asked. He had paired himself off with Damon automatically, and Damon noticed, but didn’t correct him, and Jeremy grinned.

"A lot,” Damon said without any sympathy. “Most kids don't have to deal with time honored traditions. You'll be the only one in your college who knows how to tie a knot properly."

"At least it's a bow tie, not those things that you had to wear," Jeremy said and winced.

"A cravat," Damon said and laughed. "Did I forget to tell you that Carol Lockwood is thinking of doing a flashback party?"

"Oh no," Jeremy said. The ones at school were bad enough and he liked to keep himself out of the way by the punch bowl. He kept it from being spiked and he got to wear whatever he wanted and nobody cared. The dinners they had to go to because they were Gilberts were a pain and he felt like he had to be on his best behavior the whole night. It was hard to have fun when your aunt, older sister, and every other adult around wanted to be sure that the kids were doing the right thing every second and then they turned around and were hypocrites and got drunk and fell in the fountain. Mrs. Lockwood still said that she'd tripped and the rest of them pretended they believed her. "Tell me she didn't put you in charge."

"No, she likes to micromanage too much to let somebody else take over completely."

"You've got that much in common."

Damon didn't comment, but he was thinking of something and Jeremy hoped it wasn't about killing werewolves.

“There are ways of controlling people that don’t involve getting your hands dirty all the time,” Damon said. “You just need to know how to move people around so they do what you want without knowing it.”

“How do you learn that?” Jeremy asked. He was pretty good at staying off the radar of adults, when he wasn't doing anything like smoking pot or doing other drugs and skipping classes. It was turning out that dealing with vampires was a good way to stay out of the kind of trouble that most people worried about.

“It takes practice,” Damon said.

Jeremy thought it took a lot more than that because even when he was trying, he had to watch what he was doing and even then somebody usually looked at him sideways. “It's more than that, you know what you're doing even when you get dropped into something,” Jeremy said. “Does anything even faze you?”

“It helps when you don't let yourself feel all that much,” Damon said. “That's the way I've lived for years and things are much easier.”

“But you're not doing it as much now.” Jeremy wasn't saying that to get a rise out of Damon, he had seen signs of it, flashes of expression over Damon’s face that he might have tried to hide but Jeremy had seen them and he wasn't the only one who trusted Damon.

Damon shrugged. “I have my moments.”

Jeremy wasn't sure if Damon let himself feel bad long enough for anybody to notice but he didn't want to make a huge deal out of it when he thought that he was getting some of the benefit. Especially not when he had done so much work to get close enough to get more than hints of what was going on. “That's good, right?”

“That's the question,” Damon said and grabbed Jeremy by the ankle and tugged him closer. “Now, changing the subject.”

“I'm okay with that,” Jeremy said and grinned as he let himself be pulled down onto the bed. He hadn’t solved all his problems, but now it felt like they were in a language he understood, and Jeremy was picking it up fast.


End file.
